I was just thinking about why many things on Linux are better. Like the install process on Linux is years ahead of windows.
Then it occurred to me that windows only improves things that can make them money. If you need to install windows, then you can deal with the crappy installer.
Linux devs improve the parts they think need to be better. The decisions are not guided by money and can be made without bias.
There’s that one screen where you disable telemetry, which I’ve always consider a part of the install process, but is there anything malicious other than that? The process as a whole is quite straightforward in my experience.
Try installing debian some time, the installer makes windows’ installer feel like its for a piece of software you got of a sketchy site that wants to install 16 other things not even related to it
We must be using different installers then, because between the amount of telemetry you have to turn off, the dark patterns, and the insistence on using a Microsoft account the whole experience reminds me of installing one of those “driver updaters” when I was a kid and before I learned that was a very bad idea
With Microsoft, any love shown could well be the Embrace part of the strategy that will lead to Extend and then Extinguish just as soon as they can figure those parts out. They might already have a plan.
The fact they've been able to turn things to their advantage so far does not mean they don't have such a plan. Or won't ever have one.
Ah, the late 1900s when you could still pretend that Apple was the choice of the counterculture for no credible reason except for Apple marketing. Slacktivism, my dude. Worthless.
This meme is truly ancient. I bet those little iMacs go for a pretty penny on eBay now after everyone tossed them in the garbage circa 2003.
Those things were so hideous… and I actually thought they were cool at the time… well. Except OS9 sucked balls.
The power mac versions with the pull-to-open side were cooler. Mostly because there was a space above the PSU had just enough space to accommodate a tub of cottage cheese.
Pop it in on a Friday…. You’d be having class…. Elsewhere on Monday…
I’m pretty sure if I dug into my backup-of a backup-of a backup-of a backup to get to my old files from the 00s I’d find this there. I might have even ironically had this picture on my Zune.
I think it was created to make fun of the RIAA’s campaign back then, I don’t think they actually did it. Kind of like the “NAPSTER BAD” Metallica flash animation.
Na, humans are just really good at making other living beings suffer, no matter the system. Communism is certainly not a pleasant system to imagine, however it is not inherently worse or better than others that we know.
What, genuinely, is unpleasant to imagine about a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society? I’ve only ever heard people say that Communism sounds great in theory but for some reason or another can’t work in practice, or support for both. I’ve never once heard that Communism itself is unpleasant in theory.
Not just great, but eventually necessary. Capitalism can’t outlast automation, increasingly automated production will eventually result in mass job loss and stagnation unless directed by society as a whole. It’s important to ensure this transition goes well and we learn from transitions of the past to not repeat their mistakes.
That’s what they thought of factorization as well, but it outlasted it just fine. Same thing will happen with more advanced forms of automation, but there will be growing pains certainly.
Capitalism is undeniably declining, though. Production is through the roof, but wages have stagnated with respect to that. Factorization in the sense of industrialization was never seen to go against Capitalism, rather, with the rise of factories came the rise in Capitalism.
Unless I’m misunderstanding your point, of course.
Additionally, the fact that one prediction was wrong does not necessitate that all predictions are wrong.
The amount of people living in extreme poverty was 94% in 1820. In 1981, it was 44.3%. In 2015, 9.6%. This effect is entirely due to Capitalism. Perhaps wages in the West have stagnated because people in other countries deserve those better wages more? Just a hunch, no data to back that one up, except these statistics.
This incredible success in saving people from horrible conditions might not continue, but the recent history has been pretty great.
There are socialist laws that govern and assist the poor everywhere in the world, so I would attribute the claim that “fewer people living in poverty” to socialism rather than capitalism; aside from that, those figures entirely depend on how poverty is defined.
Development did, not Capitalism. The countries that developed the most in the 1900s were the ones rejecting Capitalism in favor of some form of Socialism.
Do you think that people get richer when a group of people decide they have no rights of ownership and one person owns everything, or do you acknowledge that democracy and decentralization are good?
Do you think that people get richer when a group of people decide they have no rights of ownership and one person owns everything, or do you acknowledge that democracy and decentralization are good?
False dichotomy. Those are obviously not the actual two options.
To argue for Capitalism over Socialism, you must reject the idea of democratizing control of productuon in favor of dictatorial control. You can whitewash it into “meritocracy,” and pretend that ownership is a mystical concept that chooses those with the highest competency, but ultimately Capitalism is a rejection of Worker Control, and thus an affirmation of control in the hands of the few.
Similarly, to believe that this dictatorial control is worth it, you typically must also believe that growth is either non-existant if the Workers direct it, or pales in comparison to when Capitalists control production.
Therefore, you are rejecting the concepts of decentralization and democratization of production in favor of the “good men” theory, putting all your chips on Capitalists either being good people or being replaced by better Capitalists without input from the Workers.
Did I deliberately highlight the flaws of your thinking without putting the kid gloves on? Yes, and I won’t apologize for it, as the claims are logically a necessity to hold your beliefs.
So which is capitalism? The world of Star Trek contains technology that has brought humanity (and other species) to a state of extreme abundance. They generate food from energy and they have almost infinite energy. The situation is so much better than the real world that probably any system would work just fine. One of the biggest reasons why we need to have economic systems is scarcity.
That’s not the theory, though. The initial claim was that it’s unpleasant to think about. Regardless of your claim that it “invariably leads to shit,” that doesn’t answer the initial question.
If the claim should truly have been that existing attempts at Communism are unpleasant to think about, rather than “Communism itself is unpleasant to think about,” then it’s just an issue with wording.
Not everywhere, Yugoslavia is a good example of things being implemented the right way. There is always room for improvement of course, things were far from perfect… and perfect is just such a strong word, the idea is not to be perfect, to always improve it.
Yes, there was a war, but there were a lot of factors that contributed to that, including the US medling in internal affairs. In general, up until the death of Tito, everything was pretty much OK. The turmoils began after his death.
That’s a bad example, because at that point Yugoslavia couldn’t have existed without Tito – he was an extremely authoritarian figure that cracked down on any sort of controversial thought hard. Having an intelligent dictator as the unifying force isn’t a particularly good strategy, and Yugoslavia was bound to fail without an authority forcing it to stay together. There were many human rights violations done to keep the peace and equality in the nation.
Yugoslavia also wasn’t exactly as “communist” as other communist countries, they allowed private ownership of property and business and relied a lot on surrounding capitalist countries to have a decent standard of living and economy.
That’s a bad example, because at that point Yugoslavia couldn’t have existed without Tito – he was an extremely authoritarian figure that cracked down on any sort of controversial thought hard.
You obviously never lived in Yugoslavia. I have. It was nothing like that. Western media presented him like every other dictator there is out there, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Benevolent dictator, yes, that one he might have been, but an iron fisted one that went after everyone that so much as whispered something he didn’t like? No, that’s just not true.
Having an intelligent dictator as the unifying force isn’t a particularly good strategy, and Yugoslavia was bound to fail without an authority forcing it to stay together.
That might be true to an extent. Slovenia and Croatia didn’t like the federation, especially Sloveina… and yes, they were kinda forced into the federation after WWII. I would agree that Slovenia might have been better off if she was allowed to leave the federation. She should never have been a part of the federation anyway.
Croatia had a different problem. They wanted to be in the federation, but wanted to lead it. Tito had to balance. He was Croatian, so he had to put the capital in Serbia and pick most of the leading figures from the Serbs.
You have to understand, these regions were always riddled with nationalst wars. This was a chance for everyone to live peacefully, compromises had to be made. And we did live peacefully… up to a point.
Yugoslavia also wasn’t exactly as “communist” as other communist countries, they allowed private ownership of property and business and relied a lot on surrounding capitalist countries to have a decent standard of living and economy.
Yes, Yugoslavia was socialist, and that was also up to an extent (as mentioned, private ownership and other things).
Though, the idea was to be completely autonomous. The relying on capitalist countries part was supposed to be a temporary solution. And things were heading in the right direction (more or less… not saying things couldn’t have been done better), but tides shifted when Tito died and everything started falling appart. I could elaborate in more detail if you’d like, but I feel like it’s enough for this comment.
Do you know what most of the Communist countries that “invariably went to shit” had in common? One of the most powerful, red fearing countries in the world fucking with them relentlessly, despite the “fact” that “they would have failed if left to their own devices”
Yeah, that’s not a valid argument. Red fearing countries shouldn’t have been a problem if the ideology actually had been a good one. Communists were trying to spread the ideology just as much as others were trying to stop it.
The whole idea just sucks donkey balls and you’re having a weird nostalgia moment by proxy if you want to rewind the world back to it.
That analogue is so off the mark that I don’t what you’re trying to say. Are you implying that communist countries were building their societies with absolute peace and non-communists started all the trouble?
Theory is a plan for reality. If you can prove that tools have a mystical property that causes people to turn evil if they share them, be my guest. You can’t actually tie that absurd claim to reality though, so you won’t.
Personally, I love the idea of decentralization, collaboration, and democratization, which is why I love FOSS and am on Lemmy rather than Reddit.
It’s also the worst. It was the backbone of both Nazi Germany, and modern Social Democracies. Capitalism is incredibly broad, both the most evil and most benign states in history have relied on Capitalism.
Socialism similarly is broad, and isn’t at all synonymous with Stalinism or Maoism.
To be fair, the political compass is a vast oversimplification itself. For example, there cannot be an Anarchist Capitalism in any fashion, as Capitalism definitionally has a requirement for hierarchy to exist.
It’s better to understand values and positions than try to place people on an imaginary grid.
There are a lot of benefits to it, like no real central leadership (more like central steering, not really iron fisted dictators which is what most implementations of it turned out to be), abolishing the monetary system (if implemented all the way), communes decide for themselves, good free healthcare, people are at the center of the system, not money/profit, etc.
That requires a different mindset and (maybe) a different level of eveolution. Food is free, you take what you need. Services are free, if your house needs something fixed, you call the adequate people, they do the job, that’s it. Same for healthcare, you just go to the doctor, no bill, you just leave (we used to have that around here). Tech products are free, you take what you need (TV, stereo, phone, PC, etc.). You go to work and do the same as everyone else, do your job and go home.
This is a very simplified version and as I said, it requires a different mindset. We’re not used to that right now, it’s alien to us.
You have to put someone in charge of distributing the goods and services, set laws to make interactions between parties fair, and divy up resources, and remove/rehabilitate criminals, and that inherently creates a power imbalance. How do you suggest we keep the leaders beholden to the governed in this system so they dont abuse this power?
You groom them from children. This is an unpopular opinion, but it’s the best solution I could think of. Shamans have done the same in tribes. Some children show empathetic and leadership skills, stading behind the weak and sharing things equaly among siblings and other children. You pick those and groom them from children to take on the burden to be leaders. Yes, this is not fair, they’ll never grow up to choose what they want to be, but so are so many things in life. Sacrifices have to be made for the greater good… and so many far worse things have happened in human history.
Under that system, all leadership would be exclusive and homogeneous, as they would all be a part of some select leadership class, not unlike the nobility class of europe. Picking people from childhood and grooming them to be leaders is no guarantee that they will be good leaders. What do we do if someone is a bad leader in this sytem?
That concerns me because that creates a conflict of interest if the only people who can invite or remove people from the council are other members of said council. We see in the real world that breeds nepotism and corruption and makes non-violent policy change nearly impossible. Wouldn’t it be better to allow the people to choose council members and remove them by vote when necessary?
Abolishing money is a very gradual process, not an immediate one. In lower stages, Labor Vouchers would be paid, and these represent an hour of labor. The difference is that labor Vouchers are destroyed upon first use.
Secondly, difficult, unpleasant, or otherwise undesirable labor would either be paid at a higher ratio, or require less labor per week to make the same amount of labor Vouchers. Alternatively, these dirty jobs may require rotation, so nobody is stuck working them. There are many ways of handling this, with more proposals than you would expect.
So labor vouchers are money that give special treatment to people who do undesirable tasks? Or are they forced upon people at random, like a temporary forced labor lottery?
Neither. It’s a replacement for money, based on hours worked. The difference between money and LVs are that LVs are destroyed upon first use, ie you create 4 hours of Value, then trade that for 4 different hours of Value.
People don’t get everything for free until productivity is so high that it’s practical, which comes from development. The distribution is handled by the Socialist State, typically, until it becomes vestigial and no longer necessary.
Nope, just like it doesn’t require unlimited resources and automation to get you to do your chores. However, at a societal scale, its definitely a futuristic goal, which is why Communism is only achievable after Socialism, which is similar to modern society except industry is collectively, rather than individually owned.
Even at a global scale? How would communism produce enough resources to sustain the human race while doing so ethically when at the same time removing all incentives by providing free food, shelter, clothing, entertainment, and everything else for free?
It can only happen at a global scale. There are numerous answers to your question, but again, it isn’t as simple as removing all incentives. Read theory, Marx never pretends to know what Communism must look like, which is why Communists focus on achieving Socialism first, as we can very well transition to that now.
If you’re going to debate a topic - and especially if you’re going to make such a bold claim - you have a duty to learn and understand the topic you are debating.
Again, a lazy statement. You’re supposing that I don’t know a thing because I don’t agree with you. That is a wrong supposition altogether, certainly some sort of a logical fallacy, and also, most importantly, this is linuxmemes, sir.
A new person comes to join the lazy statement club. Welcome! If you think I should take you folks seriously, however, perhaps you should try forming actual arguments.
Communism and socialism are primarily social orders, not economic ones. Yes, there must be an economic order in place, but as a derivative of the social order, to serve the social order and make it better, to grow and mature. That is not the case with democracy and capitalism.
Optional communalism I say, when you learn to cook, clean, or use a toilet, that’s communalism, you didn’t teach yourself and you didn’t pay by wiping your own arse.
There isn’t, the message itself is satire. The audience is precisely who the message is for, it’s making fun of Microsoft comparing FOSS to Communism, parodying red scare propaganda.
But the dude is programming with the Communist devil so he is the one doing the communism! They need a windows toting jesus to surf in with sunglasses and a guitar or something
I highly doubt that. They are open-sourcing a small suite because it is economical to do so. Closed source means constantly having to re-train newcomers. Normalizing VsCode and friends will go a long ways. Same thing Google did with their IT certs.
Nah, nobody cares about their monopoly anymore. They got outmaneuvered on mobile, and they’re stuck being a desktop OS while the rest of the market moves around them.
Happens a lot with monopolies. IBM was the biggest name in mainframes, but their PC division made a standard that other companies would take and run.
Microsoft wouldn’t have put as much effort into WSL if it was just performative.
Still, everything enterprise related or video/audio revolves around them (and Macs of course). That is one of their biggest assets now, as well as the “a perscription OS” spin they’re trying to pull on Windows. Also, their subscription services, people that do all sorts of businesses use them a lot.
Even enterprise stuff has largely moved away from Microsoft. They are still dominant in some areas like the business desktop space/office 365/active directory, but ‘enterprise’ apps running on Windows Server (and associated stuff like IIS) with tight Microsoft integrations are a thing of the past.
Yeah, that’s what I meant by enterprise use, not IIS. And they’re still dominant on the audio/video production market. Basically, every aspect that is not just your everyday browsing or small office work.
They recognized that PCs were the next big thing and needed one of their own. Large companies don’t move fast, and IBM is certainly no exception, but they had to move fast now. So they took a bunch of off the shelf components that anyone else could have bought and called it their PC.
Everything except the BIOS. It regulated how the OS interacts with the hardware. Almost to the point where you could argue DOS isn’t an OS at all, but just a thin command line layer over the BIOS, plus a simple minded file system.
Anyway, some people at Compaq make a cleanroom implementation of the BIOS and release an “IBM PC compatible”. This quickly becomes the basis of everything we call a PC today. But IBM doesn’t get to profit off it in the long run. They sold off their PC division decades ago.
The show “Halt and Catch Fire” has an excellent fictional example of the reverse engineering process.
TCP/IP does not have a concept of Presentation or Session. Everything above it is just “Application”, which is more sensible. There isn’t much criticism to be had of layer 4 down, but when they got to layer 5 and 6, they were telecom people sticking their nose in software architecture. You can write networked applications with those layers if you like. I’ve seen it done, and it’s fine. There are also plenty of other ways to architect it that also work just fine.
There isn’t much criticism to be had of layer 4 down, but when they got to layer 5 and 6, they were telecom people sticking their nose in software architecture.
That is true.
But, you have to understand, back when OSI was made, the only thing which could benefit from it was telecom and banking… there were no PCs as we know them today. It’s no surprise that OSI caters mostly to telecom software and needs.
And you could always just use the model up until layer 4, it’s pretty good up until layer 4, and just do whatever you like after that… if you’re developing your own protocol for something that is.
Microsoft open-sourced all of dotnet core, which is arguably the largest and most well-maintained (with exceptions) collection of tools/platforms for developers that exsists to date. So, I don’t really agree that they’re just “making face”
They’re absolutely just “making face”. For each thing Microsoft frees, how many more are proprietary shit? Visual Studio, proprietary. Windows, proprietary. Etc.
Do you consider drastically improving upon previous conditions to be a miserable failure? Ignoring that Communism has never existed, and only specific forms of Marxism-Leninism have existed, and ignoring that MLism is only a fraction of all of Communist ideology, even MLism drastically improved upon previous conditions.
I’m not even close to a tankie, but I’m genuinely curious what you mean by what you’ve said.
Sure, and capitalism has never existed either, only specific forms of libertarian-constitutionalism 🤷♂️
Now, if you can see how silly what I just typed is, you should be able to see how silly it is to claim communism has never been tried. You say yourself that Marxist-Leninism is a communist ideology, so if it’s being attempted, then it’s valid to say a form of communism is being attempted.
Do you consider drastically improving upon previous conditions to be a miserable failure?
All of the citation needed. Don’t make the mistake of including the goals of outcome as part of the definition, that’s just cheating. Op obviously rejects the idea that it makes things better, you can’t just assume it a priori.
Socialism has existed, that’s what the USSR was. It was an ML Socialist state, but it failed to become a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society. In other words, it failed to reach Communism. Communism has been attempted, but never reached. It never reached the Communist stage, so Communism itself hasn’t been tried, only the ML form of Socialism.
The Soviet Union doubled life expectancy from the mid 30s to the mid 70s, had constant GDP growth until it liberalized and collapsed, guaranteed free Healthcare and education, and had mass housing initiatives. It had far lower wealth inequality than before or after its existence. This is all freely available information.
Am I a USSR Stan? Fuck no, the Politburo was a corrupt mess and Stalin was a thug. However, you’ve completely misconstrued my argument.
Okay I see what you mean. You agree attempted, but never achieved, I see that now. I’m sorry for misconstruing your argument, but I still take issue with your assertion that things got drastically better. That’s a big red flag to me and tends to be a sign that someone is having a big misunderstanding.
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The Soviet Union doubled life expectancy from the mid 30s to the mid 70s
While true, it is essentially a lie by omission to leave out other key details. For one thing, if you think about it, what kind of conditions would one have to be in initially to make doubling the life expectancy even possible?
The Russians were in horribly dire straits. Life expectancy fell from 37 to 32 from 1930-1935. The chief cause was forced collectivization of farming by Stalin. Privately owned farms were confiscated by the state, and were horribly mismanaged which resulted in famine. Socialist policy directly caused that famine.
Life expectancy started going up again in 1935 after they relaxed grain procurement quotas, decentralized, and opened up private plots. This is the scaling back of socialist policy, and the implementation of capitalist policy. Capitalism policy is to thank for stopping the famine.
had constant GDP growth until it liberalized and collapsed
The US has had exponential growth, rather than linear, along with many of its allies. Russia also supplies a large percentage of the world’s oil, you’d have to make fucking up an art to make your GDP go down with a supply like that.
guaranteed free Healthcare and education,
Both were an improvement considering I don’t think much was their for either before, so I’ll give ya that.
and had mass housing initiatives
These came in response to a housing crisis caused by inadequate supply of houses when the USSR nationalized it under the Central Board of Architecture. The housing initiatives did help, but the housing problem was never solved, and it was a problem created by them.
It had far lower wealth inequality than before or after its existence
Because he killed the rich people, and no one had anything. Equality is not an intrinsically good quality, especially when it means everybody is equally impoverished.
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I guess this is why I find the observation that communism has never existed pretty naive. Socialism, in its most honest representation, is really the state ownership of the means of production. The way Stalin held ownership in common, was to collectivize it under the state that all citizens are part of. If we are trying to achieve a stateless society, then holding ownership in common is an antithetical goal. Every step the USSR took away from common ownership was a step towards private ownership, and therefor a step towards capitalism.
I wasn’t referring to 30s and 70s as time periods, but the actual life expectancies. LE dropped sharply during the formation of the USSR due to civil war and WWI, and during the 30s due to famine from collectivization. After collectivization and WWII, the USSR was food secure and LE jumped sharply, combined with free Healthcare and mass housing initiatives.
Again, pre-USSR LE was far lower, and post-USSR there was another drop in LE until the last decade or so.
The US has insane growth because it managed to dodge all of the damage of WWII and export Imperialism and control over the global economy as it solidified itself as the reigning superpower. The USSR was a developing country, nowhere near as developed, and had a far more active role in WWII. Not a fair comparison, IMO.
The US has far worse housing problems even today than the USSR had. The USSR attempted to solve this problem, the US has not.
People in the USSR had far more than they had under the Tsars, and the idea that those at the top were cartoonishly wealthy is false. They didn’t have luxury goods, but they had little issues with necessities.
Holding ownership in common is the only way to have a Stateless society, Private Property Rights require a state while public property does not, as the community itself enforces this.
All in all, I am not pro-USSR. I think the process of Democratic Centralism is highly flawed and not accountable to the Workers, as the Politburo sustained itself. I also think Stalin was a horrible thug, and tragedies like the Katyn Massacre should be learned from so as to never repeat them. However, it’s also important to acknowledge that many parts of the USSR did work, and as such we should equally learn from where they did succeed.
My opinion is that decentralization is a fantastic thing, and is an excellent way to combat central control. However, this cannot be meaningfully achieved in a top-down system like Capitalism.
I wasn’t referring to 30s and 70s as time periods, but the actual life expectancies.
Oh, I must have assumed you meant otherwise because the USSR never reached that high of a life expectancy. They peaked in 1970 at 68 years old, at which point it trended down again. Russians never reached a life expectancy of 70 until 2015. You should also consider how volatile that graph has been in general, it simply isn’t good for a state to have that much influence over the life expectancy of all of its people.
That little bump in 1985-1990 correlates with the reign of Gorbachev. He implemented policy that gave more autonomy to enterprises (less state control), and allowed for foreign trade (opening the market, again less state control). This included giving way more autonomy to the collectivized farms, as well as allowing for private farms for both personal use and for sale on the market - in other words, he de-collectivized. Given that the central authority in the USSR was the state, you could also say the central authority has less control, and thus they decentralized.
Compare this the the US life expectancy of time. It’s much less volatile for one thing, it’s a very steady incline. They also actually did reach a life expectancy of 70 by 1970, they had it by 1965 in fact.
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Honestly, we totally agree on quite a bit here. We obviously both don’t advocate for Stalin himself, and we totally agree decentralization is a good thing. It’s just strange to me that in the case of the USSR you don’t see how the act of decentralization was literally being less strict on collective control and more lenient on private control - in other words, being less strict on socialist policy and being a little more lenient on private ownership.
it’s also important to acknowledge that many parts of the USSR did work
It’s also important to acknowledge which parts worked, it’s also important to acknowledge why they worked. When farmers were given private ownership, they had more freedom of choice in how to manage it, which is really important to have on farms for a myriad of reasons I can get into if you want. But in any case, they were better able to feed themselves as well as bring more product to market. Surplus on food and freedom of distribution means less hunger.
However, this cannot be meaningfully achieved in a top-down system like Capitalism.
Take farming as an example since it’s on topic. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. In 1985-1990 USSR most privately owned farms were small scale and personally managed. What’s more top down, a guy owning a plot of land and doing what he wants with it, or being assigned to work a plot by the regional agriculture authority, who answers to the ministry of agriculture, who answered to the council of ministers, who answered to the Communist Party leadership?
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Private Property Rights require a state while public property does not
Public Property: something owned by the city, town, or state.
I understand that the line is blurry on whether public means “of the state” or “of the people”. For example, the Romans saw the state to be in service of the people, so “public works” were state works for the people. They also saw the republic as a government of the people, so state projects were of the people either way you take it. This is exactly the same in our democracy, public spaces are managed by the state, on behalf of the people, but the democratic state is also a government of the people, so it’s effectively redundant in the modern context.
In any case, I don’t exactly think the distinction matters. As soon as a large group of people (the public) see the need to come together and make decisions and how to manage certain things and/or how to cooperate to get something done, a government is formed. When the Romans did this, they literally didn’t have a distinctive word for it, which is why they basically just called it the “public thing”, the group that handled public decision making. The nature of the Roman “public thing” swayed in and out of meaning of for the people, by the people, in service of the people, in command of the people, and it was never exclusive to one of those things.
Private property demonstrably does not require a state to exist, because that’s not always how property rights are handled. In this early period of Rome, the state could purchase and grant rights, but so could private citizens. If the people of Rome wanted a plot of land to themselves, the legal way to do so would be through a legitimate exchange with a private owner. Property rights are granted by whoever holds the property rights, private or public. Modern nations technically own the land they claim, which is why they grant access.
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The far more important distinction are the things that which the people don’t decide need collective cooperation. That’s what we call “private”. To be privately controlled, you can’t be under the control of the collective or the control of the state, which is precisely why “private” is the antithesis of “public”. In the context of Rome, centralization would be to make it part of the “public thing”. So, if the people and senate of Rome decided to bring the whole market under the control of the people the way they did the army and roads, they would have been both centralizing control of the market and technically socialist, as the means of production would been publicly controlled. The USSR was socialist for exactly that reason.
You’re continuing to compare a fully developed superpower that never had skin in WWII with a developing country the rest of the world tried to oppose at every step, that’s still completely disingenuous. The graph was volatile because the USSR was founded in Civil War, had a famine in the 30s during the horribly botched collectivization of agriculture, then had their bread basket invaded during WWII while they took on the majority of combat against the Nazis. After that, steady!
Decentralization is firmly a Socialist ideal, and is incompatible with Capitalism. Capitalism requires that workers have no power, otherwise it wouldn’t exist.
You then go on to completely butcher the definitions of Socialism by assuming it means state control, rather than collective control, of the means of production. State control is merely one path of Socialism.
Private Property requires a monopoly of violence to enforce, ie a state. You cannot have private property without threat of violence via a state, even your example proves this.
All in all, you’re frustratingly bad at arguing anything coherent, and it’s clear you don’t actually care about proper definitions.
had a famine in the 30s during the horribly botched collectivization of agriculture
which implies that non-collectivized agriculture was doing a good job considering the significant upswing in the 20s. After the civil war, non-collectivized farms were doing a good job.
All in all, you’re frustratingly bad at arguing anything coherent, and it’s clear you don’t actually care about proper definitions.
This response makes me think you didn’t really read my comment very closely considering I literally explain the etymology of the word “public”. Socialism is the public ownership of the means of production, and there’s good reason to consider that state ownership given the history of the word and its use over time. I don’t think I’m incoherent, I just think you don’t understand, otherwise you’d actually address my comment instead of restating your position and implying I’m stupid for not agreeing. I honest to god do recommend taking my comment a bit more seriously and rereading it. Really try to look at what I’m telling you, and if you disagree, I’d love to see you actually point out what’s wrong with my comment.
You’re never going to convince me I’m out of line here unless I can tell from your response you actually took in what I was saying, because honestly, you really didn’t have to read much of what I said to generate the response you made.
FOSS isn’t a political ideology itself, no. That’s like saying Mutual Aid or Worker Democracy aren’t political ideologies. Technically correct, but that wasn’t the point, all of those are leftist structures.
Communism is a political ideology, and I don’t think it can be globally considered fringe. Perhaps in the US, but not globally.
WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE LEARN THAT EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL?
The libre software movement has the stated goal of making a political statement. Your decision to exclude discussion of a certain ideology in a certain forum is itself a political decision. It is turtles all the way down.
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