What is it with these commie types that they believe communism will leave everyone to become hippies who can do whatever they want and all required resources just magically arrive when they need.
It really is watching children believe in Santa Claus
If we didn’t all work to produce excess wealth for the super wealthy, we’d have 20 hour workweeks. People can do a lot with that extra time.
And then surely people will start doing logistics for your fantasy farm in their free time right?
I mean, if they want to, sure. Point is society wouldn’t be reliant on that since everything necessary for society to function would be taken care of during the said 20 hour workweek. I don’t care if somebody wants to set up a tomato farm or a donkey ranch or whatever on the side, as long as they don’t exploit or mistreat anyone.
Logistics would be the job dedicated to moving goods and services around to the place they need to be in. It’s not something that would appeal to most but it is a critical job in any modern society.
Set it up with a nice graphical interface, label it “Logistics Simulator 2024” and you’ll have people fighting each other for the privilege
Until you spend thirty five minutes explaining to the receptionist for the intermittent carrier why rerouting through Chicago makes no sense when carrying freight from NYC to Hoboken NJ.
You act like there wouldn’t be multiple plans submitted with obsessive communities arguing about best practices and min/maxing efficiencies before accepting routes.
It’s also 24/7 so there’d be people working weird hours. Capital gets that work done even in communist countries (capital or direct coercion).
It’s pretty clear that basic economy lessons have failed you.
What you describe is controlled capitalism. People can decide themselves what they want to do and try to get things done in the most efficient way directly without government interference.
The problem current capitalism faces is that there is too little control, too much allowance for monopolies, that sort of shit. Tax the crap out of the rich, limit what you can do “if you create polluting materials, you have to recycle them yourself”, “you cant corner more than 10% of a market”, etc, but allow people to freely do what they want to do. That would be capitalism, actually.
everything necessary for society to function would be taken care of during the said 20 hour workweek
Yeah that is not how society works, that is not how anything works at all. You don’t work 40 hours a week just to make somebody rich even richer. If they could pay you only for 20 hours, they would. You work 40 hours because you CAN have a job which is because they need somebody to do that work. If they don’t need you, they won’t pay you for nothing dummie. If you work on something not required, congrats, you have a dumb boss that wastes resources and you lucked out. Most people just have normal jobs that NEED to be done. Just saying “lets do communism and we only work 20 hours a week” is beyond naive. Reality is “Lets do communism and half of us will starve to death!”
I would suggest you look into socialism more because it seems to me you are mistaken in some aspects.
Capitalism is the economic system in which individuals can own the means of production themselves, so basically an entrepreneur owns a company and everyone working there are employees with no or very little ownership over the business.
Socialism is the economic system where the workers themselves own those same means of production. What you think of as socialism is most likely the Marxist-Leninist version implemented in the USSR.
Their thought process went like this: the people all own every business, but if everyone was the boss, nothing would get done. So they considered that since people, at least on paper, vote for their leader and the state supposedly represents the people, then if the state owned all businesses it would basically be the same as if everyone owned those businesses. The issue here is that the politicians and bureaucrats who make decisions regarding those businesses, being human themselves, will tend to skew them towards their own interests. Personally, I still think it is better this way than having billionaire leeches that drain the wealth from multiple countries, but that’s besides the point.
This isn’t the only socialist system imaginable, though. It could be as simple as the workers that are employed somewhere get a share of the company for as long as they work there instead of wages. That way, you get paid a portion of the profit, and as a shareholder, can vote on decisions about the business. It’s important though that only people who work there get those shares, no outside investors or sketchy things like that to take away the power from the people. There’s no business owner in this since everyone basically owns their workplace and bosses are democratically elected. This is market socialism, you’d still have market forces and all that entails, and I think it would be the easiest change to make if we wanted to give up on capitalism.
Then there’s syndicalism, in which unions and syndicates own their sector or industry and manage them themselves. Every worker joins the union when they get hired, and they vote for stuff like leadership, rule changes, charters and the like. These syndicates then coordinate with eachother to ensure everything is working as intended and produced at the rates they are needed at.
As for the 20 hour workweek… it’s very reasonable if you look into it. Each one of us not only has to work hard enough to earn for ourselves, we also have to earn for those who are unfortunate and cannot work through taxes, which is a good thing, but we also have to work hard enough to earn for the leeches doing nothing, like the billionaires on top. Every employee has to get paid less than ehat they’re worth, since if the employer would give them every bit of money they produce, they wouldn’t be profitable. And that’s not even getting into people working jobs that don’t help society at all, such as landlords, insurance agents, marketing people, etc. If everyone worked in fields necessary for society to function, we would all work 20 hours a week.
They I have good or bad news for you, depending on your stance. We don’t. You may, depending on the company which you work for, but generally speaking most people don’t.
Yes, yes, YES. Capitalism is evil, pitchfork and torches! Reality check: Capitalism is also the very big reason why you have a computer on your desk or in your hands in the shape of a phone to write about the evils of capitalism. Capitalism is at its core about the freedoms to share and acquire resources in the most efficient way possible. Does it have big BIG problems with runaway effects where a single person can suddenly pheewwww shoot into the sky and start resource hogging? Absolutely. Should that be legally limited and curbed? Absolutely! Is that currently done well? Absofuckinglutely not!
But none of that means that “communism will save us”. Dear god, please please don’t be THAT naive, don’t believe in santa claus.
If you want to spend your free time in a commune to help hippies or whatever it is that you want to do, I applaud you. Seriously, well done. But you WILL have to work for a home. You WILL have to work for food, and that computer you have in your hand to curse the evils of capitalism. And you have to work so that when we all do that, that resources get moved over the world so that the farmer gets his equipment that he needs to farm the grains that he sends to a supermarket that gets bought by a baker which you then buy in the shape of a bread loaf… We all work together.
Again, is there a shit tonne of abuse going on? Of course. Nobody denies that. Is that abuse being curbed? Nope. Should we hang the ultra rich that have been abusing this system? Nah, lets not hang people. I’m not for violence. But should we tax them 100% of their income until their posessions are within a reasonable range? Absolutely.
But communism is not the answer, please learn some history about the “successes” (meaning ALL failures, no exceptions) of comnunism. Read about the famines, the suppression, the torture, the corruption and the crap that comes with that to make it work. I like my freedom. I don’t need piles of cash and people generally should not be allowed to have piles. You do that with laws and taxing and enforcing. Lets focus on that instead.
Ah yes, because everything you do is to meet societal needs and not to make more money for the 1%. That’s why 34% of wealth in Canada goes to the top 1%.
Then tax the crap out of them. Communism is NOT the answer, its the cause for an order of magnitude more suffering than capitalism will ever be able to cause. These sesame street types that really believe that communism will give them a vegetable garden to work in just should stop using the internet. You are using a frikkin mobile phone, a device that is the frikking epitome of capitalism and science to bitch about the evils of capitalism (and loads of people do the same with science too).
Turn in your mobile phone and go live on a hippie farm (or in a cave) and die of horrible preventable diseases, if that is what you wish, but you don’t get to have it both ways.
Yes, capitalism has a shit tonne of problems that MUST be solved, totally agree. The wealthy should be taxed up to a 100% of income once their income and net worth surpasses a certain level. Just cap it. We should have free education, free healthcare, basic rights on homes and food… A socialist system BUILT ON A CAPITALIST SYSTEM. That is because capitalism, at its core, is allowing people the freedom to trade in the most efficient way possible by themselves. THAT IS STRENGTH and that is the very reason why the west currently rules just about everything. Yes, having it run loose with no restrictions (as we currently try to do for some fucked up reason) is bad, VERY bad. Still not communism bad, though. I 100x rather have our current fucked up capitalist system over living in the fun communistic countries of the USSR (hello famines!), China (heeelllooooo famines with millions of victims!) or Korea (helloo!!!) or… Well, you get the gist. I’m not even talking about the government policing that comes with it.
Captialism has problems, absolute. FIX THEM. Don’t go jackoff over systems that are known for misery, famines, death camps, and just general failure.
How many famines do you think occured in China and Russia prior to communism? How many people do you think died because of famines in the decades prior to communism?
Famine in late 19th century/early 20th century China and Russia were a fact of life. They’d come ever few years, kill a few million, and then leave. That had been the case throughout history because subsistence farming isn’t exactly a very robust system. How many famines do you think occured in the decades before the communist party took power?
How many famines would you guess occured in the decades after the communist party took power in Russia or China? What do you think the odds were that those famines would have occured with or without communist party intervention?
Tax them how? With the government they own?
do whatever they want and all required resources just magically arrive when they need.
“Whatever they want” is creating and distributing those resources, but I suppose labour is magic to you.
Yeah, and distributing resources efficiently is one of the core strengths of capitalism, its the reason why capitalism is so successful.
No, I’m not saying capitalism is perfect nor that it doesn’t cause suffering, nor that it does not need a shitload more limits than it has right now, but communism is NOT known for its efficiency, nor for letting people just do whatever the hell they want to do. Communism forces people to do what the boss says, if you don’t like it you can go to a gulag. If you’re talking about “Communism gives people the freedom to find the most efficient ways of distributing resources” then you’re kind of confusing that with Capitalism.
If capitalism is so efficient at distributing resources, why are so many people starving?
Also, yet another “communism is when capitalism”. Communism wouldn’t have an upper class of “bosses”.
Also, pointing to socialist states as proof communism has leadership is laughable. That’s not communism. It’s socialism. At least do some research.
why are so many people starving?
There are loads of reasons for people starving, but in democratic capitalist countries, people typically don’t starve. Don’t agree? Name one. There is poverty in the US for sure and capitalism in the US is an absolute shitshow, nobody would deny that. But people in the US rarely starve to death.
Wanna talk starvation? Lets talk starvation! Warning: All following links are wikipedia but have stomach churning content. Here be dragons, but please do read because you need to learn. Also note: All the following is from within the last century.
1: Russian famine: about five million deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_famine_of_1921–1922 (famine caused directly by communism)
Quote from that page: The famine resulted from the combined effects of economic disturbance from the Russian Revolution, the Russian Civil War, and the government policy of war communism (especially prodrazvyorstka). It was exacerbated by rail systems that could not distribute food efficiently.
Fun quote: canibalism
Communism is awesome!
2: North Korean famine: estimated between 600,000 and 1 million deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine (Famine caused directly by communist government policies)
Quote: Economic mismanagement and the loss of Soviet support caused food production and imports to decline rapidly. A series of floods and droughts exacerbated the crisis. The North Korean government and its centrally planned system proved too inflexible to effectively curtail the disaster.
Fun quote: uses of words such as ‘famine’ and ‘hunger’ were banned because they implied government failure
Communism is awesome!
3: Chinese famine: 15 to 55 million deaths (yay!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine (Caused directly by communist government policies)
Quote: The major contributing factors in the famine were the policies of the Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1962) and people’s communes, launched by Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Mao Zedong, such as inefficient distribution of food within the nation’s planned economy; requiring the use of poor agricultural techniques; the Four Pests campaign that reduced sparrow populations (which disrupted the ecosystem); over-reporting of grain production; and ordering millions of farmers to switch to iron and steel production.
Fun quote: Cannibalism, AGAIN
Communism is awesome!
Want to know more?
Communism wouldn’t have an upper class of “bosses”.
… I don’t even know where to begin with this one. What are you? 5?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekism a nice side effect of communism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chekist < I F*$#king double dare you to watch that movie about the non existing upper class of bosses
In conclusion?
Communism sucks and causes nothing but suffering. There is not even a fucking silver lining about it and people need to stop hippy-dippying communism. Its fucking evil.
Yes, capitalism as it currently runs is fucked up with problems. But at its core its the driver of success that got you your mobile phone in your hands. Use that mobile phone to fix those problems instead of dreaming of perfect mass murdering societies.
- PorkRollWobbly ( @ComradePorkRoll@lemmy.ml ) 6•2 years ago
We just removed the child tax credit which made child poverty soar. The most “pro-union” president forced railroad workers to take a shit contract in December instead of allowing them to strike.
I don’t even know where to begin. That entire comment is full of lies i have debunked before. This is exhausting.
9 million per year. The number that starve due to capitalism.
I have already addressed the Soviet famine. The root cause was a crop blight and Stalin’s lax response ultimately worsened it.
As for china and north korea - any reason to believe the communism they don’t live in is the cause of that? Your own quote claims north korea mainly suffered because the USSR failed to supoort them.
Capitalism is good at raising production, generating lots of products very quickly and efficiently. But it’s notoriously terrible at actually distributing resources in a fair way. Like, that’s it’s biggest weakness and the things it’s worst at.
Communism has the opposite issue of not usually being able to make enough things in the beginning, which is why Marx thought it would happen in already industrialized nations, not poor peasant states like Russia or China.
Right? Somebody never read Animal Farm.
Sure, the current system is fucked, but it’s tied and proven that Marxism doesn’t work. We need a middle ground.
I’m sorry do you think that the point of animal farm is that the animals shouldn’t have revolted in the first place?
That book was written by a socialist.
As someone already said, the book was written by a socialist; but more specifically, it was a socialist who fought alongside communist anarchists (read non-soviet “communists”).
The main antagonist’s name is also Napoleon, which I don’t think was chosen at random. I think the point is that a revolution which uses violence and terror, will only result in a newly oppressed society; like in the 1979 French Revolution, which was followed by the Reign of Terror, and then by a republic which was quickly usurped by Napoleon who became Emperor. The same Napoleon who supported the revolution and was pro republic.
As Emma Goldman said:
To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future. That is the law of life, individual and social. Revolution that divests itself of ethical values thereby lays the foundation of injustice, deceit, and oppression for the future society. The means used to prepare the future become its cornerstone. Witness the tragic condition of Russia.
EDIT: In the middle of all this, I forgot to make my main point:
Communist/socialism revolutions having turned into dictatorships in the past says no more about communism/socialism, than past republican revolutions creating empires will tell us about republics. The issues lie somewhere else.
It seems like they believe they can be a gardener vs a farmer. That’s the only bit that I see that isn’t realistic.
In all likelihood they would be neither. With modern technology, we don’t need a large percent of the population farming. I realize communists typically eliminate the intellectuals and kulaks—those who would actually have useful knowledge—first, but the smart things would be to have the current farmers keep farming. You’d likely be assigned to a factory to manufacture widgets for the rest of your days.
Do they eliminate intellectuals? The USSR and China seem to have avoided this. I don’t believe most nations did this other than Cambodia and I will never see that shitshow as socialist.
USSR despised and fought the Intelligentsia, sending them to gulags
They got to the moon using what people exactly?
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
intellectuals were considered the “Stinking Old Ninth” and were widely persecuted—notable scholars and scientists such as Lao She, Fu Lei, Yao Tongbin, and Zhao Jiuzhang were killed or committed suicide. Schools and universities were closed with the college entrance exams cancelled. Over 10 million urban intellectual youths were sent to the countryside in the Down to the Countryside Movement.
Do they eliminate intellectuals? The USSR and China seem to have avoided this.
You are fucking kidding, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
And the part where they believe to have any freedoms whatsoever IS realistic? Or the part where they believe to actually be alive and not die in the next famine is realistic?
I see very little realism here…
Dude why do people think communism means you can’t own anything. There’s a difference between private and personal properties. You can own a house, and a car, hell even a whole farm. What you cannot do is hold capital.
So when does a farm go from personal to private property? Is it the moment you rent it or employ other people on it?
It’s an oversimplification, but… Sort of, yeah. Property you “own” to keep from others, and make money from owning it.
Tell that to the kulaks
…until the central committee decides that more coal miners are required.
For the good of the many, we decided to sacrifice a few percent each year.
In comes compound interest…
😬
Well someone has to dig the tunnel beneath the reactor core…
Haha, funny way to say “working in the lead mines”, comrade.
Comrade, we all know lead poisoning and the need for safety gear are capitalist propaganda! Now, get back in the mines! Production must increase 50% this year, and your state-appointed union representative says it can!
Capital successfully fought to put lead into American’s blood and lungs for a century after it was known to be poison. To this day they’re still fighting to keep it there.
You know, it took until 2003 for Russia to remove leaded gasoline from stations. The Soviets never did it LMFAO
but nice try
Did chatgpt not include this or…?
https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/sites.gatech.edu/dist/a/1473/files/2020/09/sovenv.pdf
Nevertheless, the Soviet Union took effective action to protect the population from lead exposure; it banned lead-based (white lead) paint and it banned the sale of leaded gasoline in some cities and regions. While leaded gasoline was introduced in the 1920s in the United States, it was not until the 1940s that leaded gasoline was introduced in the Soviet Union (5). In the 1950s, the Soviet Un- ion became the first country to restrict the sale of leaded gaso- line; in 1956, its sale was banned in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Baku, Odessa, and tourist areas in the Caucasus and Crimea, as well as in at least one of the “closed cities” of the nuclear weap- ons complex (6, 7). The motivation for the bans on leaded gaso- line is not entirely clear, but factors may have included Soviet research on the effects of low-level lead exposure (8), or sup- port from Stalin himself (5). In any event, the bans on leaded gasoline in some areas prevented what could have been signifi- cant population lead exposure. In the United States and other OECD countries, leaded gasoline has been identified as one of the largest sources of lead exposure (9, 10). Lead-based paint is another potentially significant source of population lead exposure.
Bonus: a great example of capital at work,
Along with a number of other coun- tries, in the 1920s the Soviet Union adopted the White Lead Convention, banning the manufacture and sale of lead-based (white lead) paint (11). In the United States, however, the National Paint, Oil and Varnish Association successfully opposed the ban, and lead-based paint was not banned in the United States until 1971 (12).
Two generations of Americans.
You say that like lead paint isn’t in American buildings still.
Great point, and regulation is still being fought by the real estate industry.
EDIT: based on another commenter, OP’s claim isn’t even factual.
And it took the US until 1996 (after fall of USSR)? Not to mention that it was capitalism (General Motors) that spread the hoax about leaded gasoline being safe, under the guise of scientific research in 1921.
This is not the gotcha you think it is.
If it was all an evil capitalist conspiracy, why did the communists go along with it? Hmm?
It was not uncovered until much later that this scientific research was in fact a hoax to promote General Motors’ business.
This is very easily verified with a web search. I would be happy to guide you to specific sources and readings as well.
So, the Soviets couldn’t do their own research. Got it
You’re right, America did bad thing, clearly this completely overrides the wrongs of other countries
The first commenter is talking a hypothetical scenario of socialism being bad, so the second commenter (the one you responded to) responded with actual example of that same hypothetical scenario happening, but except by a capitalist power (the US). I don’t think your response makes sense at all here.
I think the hexbears probably fucked OP irl or something. Guy is going full mental illness mode.
And your point is?
Please do share an example of industrialization that somehow doesn’t include unforseen negative health effects.
Go on now, we’ll wait.
My point is that capital has successfully fought to put lead into American’s blood and lungs for over 100 years.
Name a better duo then tankies and whatsboutism
So in other words you are unwilling to answer the question.
Got it.
This is precisely why I say that you aren’t intellectually serious people.
You have one question in your previous comment on the very first line, and it was answered.
Your statement on the 2nd line doesn’t really make sense, as I don’t think anyone blames people for unforseen negative health effects.
What people are upset about are the forseen, proven, endemic negative health effects being purposefully spread for over a century.
What a crock of shit!
Why would capital willingly poison its workforce as a deliberate policy? That makes zero sense.
I can see capital writing it off as a necessary side-cost of doing business, but I can’t see it as a deliberate policy.
Again, it makes no sense. Capital wants a relatively healthy workforce, not one that’s falling apart due to lead-caused neurological decrepitude.
The gold standard are urainum mines. Lead are for those with good behavior.
Tbh I’d rather work in a uranium mine, it’s less toxic than lead in the quantities you’d be exposed to
Remind me, what did they do to indigenous people when they were trying to get uranium for the Manhattan project?
This nonsense is just western projection.
When you own the means of production it’s literally yours. I don’t understand the issue.
Under communism, the state owns the resources. People are not the state.
That’s false. There’s no state in communism. See Karl Marx or any Communist writer on this.
Karl Marc is like Marx, but without that dictatorship of the proletariat cope.
This is a pleasant fiction.
You’ve gotta try reading beyond 6th grade level fiction before judging books on socio-economics.
You’re mistaken, the state is a collection of proletariat meaning you are a part of the state. You may not be the whole state but it is your land as it is everyone elses
Atleast as far as I understand it
Thank you for the correction sharkfucker420
Always happy to help 👍
I’ve heard same said about liberal democracy too. “State is made up of us voting citizens” etc etc. Feels as hollow
If everyone owns something no one does
How much do you and the average person actually own under capitalism
Did you just watch a Brad Bird movie
I too want a post-scarcity luxury space communism utopia. Unfortunately most iterations of communism feel more like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic than actually plugging the hole in the fuselage.
Comrade, the ship will not sink if we abuse the workers enough!
The ship is not sinking, the sea level is simply rising to its rightful place
In an orderly manner
Arguments about the definitions of Communism or Property aside - yes, my farm. As in, the one I work on. The possessive pronoun, despite the name, sometimes connotes association rather than ownership - I do not own my school, my country, my street or (despite what Republicans might wish) my wife.
No. You’ll probably be assigned a job that’s required to be done for the good of society.
It blows my mind the people who think, “after the revolution I’m going to be a dog walker and bake dog treats!” When in reality they will probably die in a labor camp.
Maybe not die in a labor camp, but they won’t be doing what they expected to do, or even wanted to do.
If they don’t have any particular skill, they’ll probably end up being crop pickers or some shit because we really need those.
Basically very similar to capitalism, but they would probably have a better quality of life overall.
Hahahahahahahaha omg… you can’t be this ignorant. You’re joking, right?
It’s always cartoon pfp users the most delusional.
“There’s one hole in every revolution, large or small. And it’s one word long: People.” –Spider Jerusalem
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Guys, it’s a joke.
But jokes spreading misconceptions deserve to be adressed accordingly.
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No shit.
