Anti-Socialism Thread

[Nevertopia]

man if socialism was so great why does it keep losing out to capitalism? Hmm.

Proto-capitalism's been an idea since before the calendar, but it took thousands of years for the bourgeoisie to take control. We've had class warfare since we started using social hierarchies. Beating the side with the upper hand takes time.

which is why capitalism works. It empowers the overall means of the common man.

[Rusozak]

In all my experiences with apologists for the PRC and NK I feel I can conclude far eastern authoritarian socialism seems to have devolved into a new age fascism. Especially China. The modern PRC is basically Nazi Germany 2.0 with "Aryan" replaced with "Han Chinese" at this point.

You think the PRC is bad? Juche is even worse.

Maybe the power of the PRC to do a lot more things has me biased, but I won't argue with that. At least NK is relatively honest about it. The CCP seems to still be telling their subjects the party that turned China into a Han supremacist pseudo-capitalist fascist nightmare is still committed to making a communist utopia. Juche seems to just justify the status quo as the ideal society in itself.

[Cordel One]

Proto-capitalism's been an idea since before the calendar, but it took thousands of years for the bourgeoisie to take control. We've had class warfare since we started using social hierarchies. Beating the side with the upper hand takes time.

which is why capitalism works. It empowers the overall means of the common man.

Which is why feudalism autocracy caste system oligarchy theocracy military dictatorship works. They--Oh wait, they all thought they would be eternally dominant as well, now look at them.

Capitalism does not empower the proletariat, it exploits them.

[Byzconia]

While I understand this sentiment (and it certainly makes sense from a certain perspective), from the perspective of building an actually successful socialist state in eastern Germany, it was an extremely bad idea. The Soviets were well within their right to demand punitive reparations, but they essentially shot themselves in the foot long-term by taking almost anything that wasn't nailed down (and even some things that were).


This is true, until it wasn't anymore. The European capitalist countries eventually caught up (and then surpassed) the Eastern Bloc, hence why communism started to falter in the first place. Their economies stagnated and slowed while it seemed (at least in the eyes of many Eastern Europeans) that the West was experiencing a level economic growth they could never imagine. Tbf, part of this image was because of Western propaganda that infiltrated the Iron Curtain, but it had a basis in truth--the West really was overtaking the East and the communist economies really were stagnating and stalling.


Except every uprising and protest against Soviet occupation was deemed to be "Western-backed" because the "the working classes of Europe could never think of opposing glorious communism!" It all goes back to the Marxist idea that workers who aren't communists are just blinded by their lack of "class consciousness," an extremely cultish idea if I've ever heard one. That said, yeah, I have no doubt that the West would've loved for the communists to be overthrown, that's not exactly a revelation. They were supportive of the Hungarian Revolution, too, doesn't change the fact that the event was legitimate national uprising against communist rule (something the communist regime itself officially recognized later on).

And yes, the FRG and NATO were both formed before the DDR and Warsaw Pact. What about it?

1. That might be right, but the Nazis slaughtered thirty million Soviets. Some territorial losses and reparations is the least that could have happened.

2. No, it was true until the end and I have scientific evidence.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/

3. No, it was literally western backed. I think the US even admits this. The outcome of it, just like the Hungarian revolution if it had succeeded, would be NATO expanding. Besides that you have no idea what class consciousness is or what it means.

The reason why I mentioned NATO and the FRG being made first was because it was the start of a trend of western aggression against the USSR and socialist states in general.

1. Right, I don't disagree with that, I'm just saying that the Soviets going to the extant that they did basically ensured that communism in Eastern Europe was going to fail in the long-term. That's all.

2. Yes, I've seen this data before, and your interpretation is not an entirely correct one. The trend only remains true when comparing poor countries to one another. Lower-tier (in terms of GNP per capita) socialist countries ranked more highly than equivalent-tier capitalist countries, but once you reach the very richest Western nations (like the US, Canada, UK, France, and W. Germany, as well as the Nordic States), the trend changes in their favor, as none of the Eastern European communist states can match them, not even the Soviets at that point. The specific study I'm referencing can be found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/

That said, yes, the successes of the socialist countries are impressive and should indeed be examined for what can be learned from them while repeating their mistakes, but that doesn't change the fact that they definitively made some rather fatal mistakes.

3. Again, "Western backed" means nothing within context. What was the West supposed to do instead, go, "Hey, guys, go back to your homes, we actually think you should give communism a chance"? I mean, I'm sure many communists would've preferred that, but they obviously weren't going to. Tito's regime in Yugoslavia was also "Western-backed," despite Tito being a communist. That's just the way the international politics cookie crumbles. And yes, I very much do "have an idea" of what class consciousness is, I used to be a Marxist. Again, communists do this all of the time, "No one could ever possibly be opposed to communism if they know what it is! Therefore you must just be ignorant!" Believe, I'm not. Some people who criticize Communism certainly are, no doubt, but I'm not one of them.

While the Soviets certainly perceived it as aggression, it really wasn't intended that way. NATO's mission statement throughout the Cold War was opposition to Soviet expansionism in Europe, because the Western powers legitimately believed that the Soviets wanted to conquer Europe and turn it into more Commie Land. Of course, they were incorrect in this assumption (at least, to the extant they thought), but it's what they actually thought. Most Western Europeans had very little desire to actually go to war with the East, mainly because of, you know, World War II and their desire to not repeat that again. But even with that said, they weren't just going to sit back and do nothing either, NATO was the best thing they could think of to keep themselves relatively safe. They were terrified of the Soviets, not actively trying to fight them (that was more Truman and Churchill, but even he recognized direct conflict would be idiotic).

[Byzconia]

In all my experiences with apologists for the PRC and NK I feel I can conclude far eastern authoritarian socialism seems to have devolved into a new age fascism. Especially China. The modern PRC is basically Nazi Germany 2.0 with "Aryan" replaced with "Han Chinese" at this point.

Eh, I don't if I'd go that far (at least not yet). There's a surprising amount of continuity between Imperial China and the PRC when actually get past all of the ideology and propaganda insisting that there isn't (hell, there's even pretty strong continuity between Chiang Kai-shek and the modern PRC, too, especially in contrast to the regime he created in Taiwan (as of nowadays). I would say this statement is far more true of North Korea, whose posturing and insistence on being "racially superior" to Americans, Japanese, and South Koreans is way more in line with Nazi racialism than the PRC's inherited bias towards Han Chinese (Japan is at least as racially biased in favor of their own ethnic majority--this is not an uncommon thing in East Asian cultures, socialist or otherwise).

man if socialism was so great why does it keep losing out to capitalism? Hmm.

Something something "not real communism." Or, alternatively, "it was sabotaged by capitalist imperialists."

[Exalted Inquellian State]

which is why capitalism works. It empowers the overall means of the common man.

Which is why feudalism autocracy caste system oligarchy theocracy military dictatorship works. They--Oh wait, they all thought they would be eternally dominant as well, now look at them.

Capitalism does not empower the proletariat, it exploits them.

I do think capitalism needs to be regulated somewhat, but if a worker doesn't like their paycheck, they can leave and find another job. Or start their own. Which is why we need anti-trust laws.

[USS Monitor]

the tenants of socialism are fundamentally anti-democratic.

Yes, but do they pay their rent?

And does the landlord of socialism keep up with maintenance on the property?

[Washington Resistance Army]

In all my experiences with apologists for the PRC and NK I feel I can conclude far eastern authoritarian socialism seems to have devolved into a new age fascism. Especially China. The modern PRC is basically Nazi Germany 2.0 with "Aryan" replaced with "Han Chinese" at this point.

You think the PRC is bad? Juche is even worse.

Juche and Songun are also very understandable in the historical context tbf. Especially after our handing of "rogue nations" in the past few decades I'd be going all in on self sufficiency and mass armament too.

[Exalted Inquellian State]

the tenants of socialism are fundamentally anti-democratic.

Yes, but do they pay their rent?

And does the landlord of socialism keep up with maintenance on the property?

This is what AI Dungeon sounds like half the time. I told you already, I'm Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Germany, NOT THE USSR!

[West Leas Oros 2]

Yes, but do they pay their rent?

And does the landlord of socialism keep up with maintenance on the property?

This is what AI Dungeon sounds like half the time. I told you already, I'm Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Germany, NOT THE USSR!

You use AI Dungeon too?

[Exalted Inquellian State]

This is what AI Dungeon sounds like half the time. I told you already, I'm Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Germany, NOT THE USSR!

You use AI Dungeon too?

Yep. I have no money to spare for HOI4, so I played TNO and later kaiserreich on it.

[West Leas Oros 2]

You use AI Dungeon too?

Yep. I have no money to spare for HOI4, so I played TNO and later kaiserreich on it.

Heh. Yeah, I use it quite a bit, albeit not as a HOI4 clone.

[Byzconia]

Which is why feudalism autocracy caste system oligarchy theocracy military dictatorship works. They--Oh wait, they all thought they would be eternally dominant as well, now look at them.

Capitalism does not empower the proletariat, it exploits them.

I do think capitalism needs to be regulated somewhat, but if a worker doesn't like their paycheck, they can leave and find another job. Or start their own. Which is why we need anti-trust laws.

At the risk of sounding like a commie, it's not really that simple. In fact, the actual order you'd want to do these things is, "find another job, then they can leave." In the US, at least, straight up just leaving your job simply because you don't like your paycheck is an exponentially bad idea, because you really aren't guaranteed to find another one (this is especially true during the pandemic, but we'll go ahead and assume non-pandemic conditions for the sake of argument). People tend to overestimate how easy it actually is to find a job, especially in economically rundown areas where there virtually are no jobs (it's the same line of thinking that leads people to the whole "pull up your bootstraps," which isn't how reality works--like, at all). And then, even if you do manage to find one, the odds are pretty good it won't be much better than the last one. Of course, if someone lives in an area where there is plentiful work, that's a different story. That's the thing, economics is complicated and employment can't really be boiled down to "just get another job," at least, not in every circumstance.

As for starting one's own business, that's laudable, but a lot easier said than done, especially in an economic climate that's becoming increasingly dominated by monopolies (though, I see that you at least recognize this problem by mentioning the anti-trust laws). There's also the fact that, practically speaking, a lot of people simply don't have the kind of money to do that, even if they wanted to. Their only options in that case are to either: a) take a loan from the bank (doable, but incredibly risky if it goes bad), b) find investors (easier or harder, depending on the exact product--and even then, you could end up losing creative control, which for a lot of people is worse than just not doing it at all), or c) get a small business loan from the government (probably the safest option, comparatively, but again, that kind of depends on what exactly it is you're trying to create).

I'm not saying this because I think people shouldn't take initiative in their lives, just that it's dangerous to boil such a complex situation down to simple statements like, "Just get a new job," or "Just start your own."

[Nevertopia]

which is why capitalism works. It empowers the overall means of the common man.

Which is why feudalism autocracy caste system oligarchy theocracy military dictatorship works. They--Oh wait, they all thought they would be eternally dominant as well, now look at them.

Capitalism does not empower the proletariat, it exploits them.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh wait, you're serious?

[Byzconia]

Which is why feudalism autocracy caste system oligarchy theocracy military dictatorship works. They--Oh wait, they all thought they would be eternally dominant as well, now look at them.

Capitalism does not empower the proletariat, it exploits them.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh wait, you're serious?

I mean, capitalism does exploit people, but so does every other socioeconomic/political system. I think it was Henry Kissinger who said, "Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, socialism is the opposite" (by which he meant "inverse," since the "opposite" of "exploitation of man by man" would be "liberation of man by man," which is what socialists claim socialism is, but I'm pretty sure Kissinger wasn't going for that--pretty sure).

[Nevertopia]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh wait, you're serious?

I mean, capitalism does exploit people, but so does every other socioeconomic/political system. I think it was Henry Kissinger who said, "Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, socialism is the opposite" (by which he meant "inverse," since the "opposite" of "exploitation of man by man" would be "liberation of man by man," which is what socialists claim socialism is, but I'm pretty sure Kissinger wasn't going for that--pretty sure).

Yes. Capitalism does exploit the common man, but as history has shown, a democratically elected governing body and sensible regulations can mitigate those negative influences. Things like living wage laws, workers rights, unions, things that are demonized by americanized capitalism are ironically part of the capitalist process of DETERMINING YOUR OWN WORTH. As developing countries become more develop and living standards are raised, the country's people inevitably push for a democratic and capitalism form of government. You can see this playing out in places like Cuba and Venezuela. The answer to capitalism's downsides isnt to throw it out, its to keep improving upon it. That is why a social democratic capitalist system is not only better than socialism/communism but capitalism itself!

[UniversalCommons]

Capitalism in a very real sense of ownership. If you took capitalism to its extreme, most people would own a portion of their job. Jobs would be structured around greater ownership and more people would own their business or own a share in a business like a cooperative or a partnership. Working for a company might require a buy in for an ownership stake. The best jobs would be an investment. However, there is an idea that wages are the best way to have a job. I am not sure this is the best way to own things.

[Conservative Republic Of Huang]

Capitalism in a very real sense of ownership. If you took capitalism to its extreme, most people would own a portion of their job. Jobs would be structured around greater ownership and more people would own their business or own a share in a business like a cooperative or a partnership. Working for a company might require a buy in for an ownership stake. The best jobs would be an investment. However, there is an idea that wages are the best way to have a job. I am not sure this is the best way to own things.

That's called syndicalism and it is not "extreme capitalism." The extreme of capitalism is ancappism, or Corporatocracy (TM).

[Byzconia]

I mean, capitalism does exploit people, but so does every other socioeconomic/political system. I think it was Henry Kissinger who said, "Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, socialism is the opposite" (by which he meant "inverse," since the "opposite" of "exploitation of man by man" would be "liberation of man by man," which is what socialists claim socialism is, but I'm pretty sure Kissinger wasn't going for that--pretty sure).

Yes. Capitalism does exploit the common man, but as history has shown, a democratically elected governing body and sensible regulations can mitigate those negative influences. Things like living wage laws, workers rights, unions, things that are demonized by americanized capitalism are ironically part of the capitalist process of DETERMINING YOUR OWN WORTH. As developing countries become more develop and living standards are raised, the country's people inevitably push for a democratic and capitalism form of government. You can see this playing out in places like Cuba and Venezuela. The answer to capitalism's downsides isnt to throw it out, its to keep improving upon it. That is why a social democratic capitalist system is not only better than socialism/communism but capitalism itself!

Yeah, I agree with you, other than than the fact that I don't particularly like democracy. Furthest I'll go in that direction is a constitutional republic, but mostly in the vein of a Machiavelli-style classical republic, rather than the modern democratic republics (though, they certainly have their benefits). Overall, my ideal system would be a meritocratic aristocracy with a social-democratic economy, but I've not come across an actual word for such an idea.

[UniversalCommons]

Capitalism in a very real sense of ownership. If you took capitalism to its extreme, most people would own a portion of their job. Jobs would be structured around greater ownership and more people would own their business or own a share in a business like a cooperative or a partnership. Working for a company might require a buy in for an ownership stake. The best jobs would be an investment. However, there is an idea that wages are the best way to have a job. I am not sure this is the best way to own things.

That's called syndicalism and it is not "extreme capitalism." The extreme of capitalism is ancappism, or Corporatocracy (TM).

Syndicalism is ownership by unions. Partnerships, cooperatives, and ESOPs are not syndicates. The structure is different. A syndicate would be a form of corporation in this structure. Syndicalism does not have enough variety in its traditional structure.

[Suriyanakhon]

More and more people are having trouble believing that when capitalism thrives on slave labor and the destruction of the planet.

No.

If your response to a critique of socialism is BUT CAPITALIZM!!! then you have nothing to offer to the conversation.

All you said was “socialism is morally reprehensible.” that's not a critique by any measure.

[Cordel One]

Which is why feudalism autocracy caste system oligarchy theocracy military dictatorship works. They--Oh wait, they all thought they would be eternally dominant as well, now look at them.

Capitalism does not empower the proletariat, it exploits them.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh wait, you're serious?

I don't know why you're laughing when you agree to this later in the thread but ok

You'd probably be a comrade if it weren't for that strong belief in the standard anti-communist talking points.

[Estanglia]

man if socialism was so great why does it keep losing out to capitalism? Hmm.

Probably because the strongest capitalist state almost entirely escaped destruction in WWII, then pretty much immediately set about containing the socialist states (most of which had been destroyed by war) and propping up capitalist states.

Having an advantage over your opponents is usually a beneficial thing.

[Byzconia]

man if socialism was so great why does it keep losing out to capitalism? Hmm.

Probably because the strongest capitalist state almost entirely escaped destruction in WWII, then pretty much immediately set about containing the socialist states (most of which had been destroyed by war) and propping up capitalist states.

Having an advantage over your opponents is usually a beneficial thing.

Sure, but it doesn't change the fact that socialist countries often shot themselves in the foot more often than not. The popularity of Communism and the USSR were extremely high after they helped defeat the Nazis, and then the Soviets took advantage of this good will by stripping their new Eastern European "allies" of most of their resources and infrastructure and forcibly installing Moscow cadres more loyal to Stalin than to their own countries. And then news of the extant and brutality of Stalin's purges got out and killed most of that momentum. Add to this the eventual brutality of the new Stalinist regimes in their respective countries in crushing non-state workers' movements and you have a huge recipe for dissatisfaction and disenchantment.

Beyond that, there's the plain fact that the Soviet-style centrally planned economy just doesn't work in the long run. As to whether an alternative version could work, it hasn't yet, so it's doubtful. It's worth noting that Yugoslavia's socialism was more market-based than the rest of the Communist Bloc but still fell apart in the end.

[Exalted Inquellian State]

If I had a dollar for every time communism worked, I'd have one or two. FOr socialism, I'd have one.

Wow. Such comedy, much applause.

You're a socialist. Be happy I admitted it worked once.