In a communist society i would most likely have to live in a building like that, in capitalism i can use my skills and effort to earn money for a nice home. Only the lazy, unskilled people want communism.
Listen, I’m no tankie by any means (in the libsoc camp) but that representation on who calls themselves a communist is so bias and obviously full of venom and spite.
Are there some lazy people who like communism? Yea. There are also some lazy people that heavily push capitalism. Being lazy doesn’t predispose you to a certain economic belief structure.
Yes in Communism you would have to live in a building instead of being a bumbling idiot looking for your bootstraps to pull up in a tent underneath an overpass, while Capitalism builds luxury high rises your dumbass will never set foot in. People arent homeless because they are unskilled or lazy, they are homeless due to Material Conditions outside of their control.
“Most research shows that around 1/3 of people who are homeless have problems with alcohol and/or drugs, and around 2/3 of these people have lifetime histories of drug or alcohol use disorders”
So even if you’re right, you’d condemn the other 1/3rd to homelessness to spite the others? People that made bad decisions are still people. I hope you’ve never made any bad decisions…
Also, you’re condemning entire communities. People in desperate situations often have to turn to crime. Paying for their incarceration (or healthcare for that matter) COSTS MORE THAN JUST PROVIDING FOR THEIR BASIC NEEDS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
We should help everyone, even if it means "bad people" can take some from the system.
We should not help anyone but a tiny fraction of people so that no "bad people" can benefit from the system.
Personally, I don't really favor making the world that much worse to avoid some spoilage. We can do better than hurting a lot of people so we get the "bad" ones, who in my view are responding to material conditions, neurology, and history.
I don't know that any particular person said it, but I agree with the notion that the first sign of civilization was a human corpse, with a femur that had been broken, and then healed. A human with a broken leg is pretty screwed on their own. Someone had to help that person get food and water long enough for it to heal. Civilization is when we help each other fulfill our needs, and that's beautiful.
Your task is not to prove that drugs exist in the homeless community. For your point of them “fucking their lives up with drugs” to be true, you have to prove that their personal drug use was the catalyst for their living conditions. Do that or take the L.
And to check yourself, you might want to look up the prevalence of drug use in more affluent communities. Hint: it’s a lot.
You provided a source that says most of the homeless people are unemployed (53% of sheltered and 40% of sheltered have jobs). I provided a source that says 2/3 of homeless people have a history of drug and alcohol abuse. Do you not know what the words “most” and “majority” mean?
No, my argument was that drug use lead them to being homeless. A lot of homeless people are in rehab programs, and it helps them a lot. The source i listed is one of those programs. You seem like the one with reading comprehension issuses.
“If someone uses drugs, they deserve to be homeless.”
“It’s impossible that people would pick up a drug habit to cope with their homelessness problem.”
“Anyone else who becomes homeless is just dumb or lazy. It’s their fault they don’t have my privilege and I’ll ignore any amount of evidence to not rethink my shitty, self-entitled world view.”
YOUR source said only 1/3 have a current substance abuse issue. And my source said that 53% of homeless folks in shelters have jobs while 40% of unsheltered folks have jobs. Most homeless folks start out using shelters and then transition to living on the street as they loss hope and ergo lose employment as their Material Conditions worsen. I am done arguing with your surface level understanding of a complex crisis. I pray you and yours never experience the crushing hopelessness that is living on the street and not knowing where you will rest your head.
“A 2021 study from the University of Chicago estimates that 53% of people living in homeless shelters and 40% of unsheltered people were employed.” Most homeless folks have jobs and lose them due to worsening Material Conditions. Facts dont care about yohr feelings. source
so more than half of them are unemployed, and others are prioritising other things to spend their money on. You cant tell me 7.25 bucks per hour isn’t enough for a home and food.
Why do you think people go to drugs, most of the time it’s because their life was already bad and the drugs just made it worse. Yes, there is a percentage of people that are lazy but it is only a small margin of homeless people. There is enough well researched material on youtube about these topics on youtube. If the system doesn’t help homeless people at all it will not get better even for the people that aren’t lazy and their life just didn’t go the right way or they were exploited at their workplace to a point that they couldn’t afford living anymore.
Just because the concept of capitalism says it is possible to “work” your way to the top doesnt mean it is happening, almost every single rich person got their wealth by some means of exploitation of other people
A third of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. On average people spend a third of their paycheck on housing. That’s not a lot of room for any kind of bad situations before they become homeless. It can be something completely out of their control like a car running a light and killing their mother which sends then into depression.
Their own fault? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve read today. Yeah because most home less people are in that situation ONLY because of their own choices, not bad circumstances, right?
Like people affected by natural disasters… 🌧 🌧 🔥 🌳🔥 who had their homes destroyed and couldn’t afford to rebuild - welp- MUST BE DRUG ADDICTION
Aside, even if it is addiction, why are those people undeserving of help now? Just because there are callus jerrks who don’t care about other humans generally, doesn’t mean we’re all like that. Grow some compassion, eh?
Try to indulge me, as I try to humanize the people you are talking about in a way that might resonate with you.
Imagine you work 40hrs a week, getting paid minimum wage or next to minimum wage, the housing market continues to worsen around you as rent continues to increase but wages don’t. If you have a place already and are just barely scraping by living paycheck to paycheck, which a lot of people are these days. One small bad financial day from an emergency or unexpected cost and you’re screwed. You miss your rent payment and you get evicted. Now, if you don’t have a safety net of people, which we can’t guarantee everyone does have living family or friends that will take you in for a month while you get back on your feet, you become homeless. You get fired from work because you’ve taken too many unpaid days off to try and get your life sorted so you don’t have to sleep on the streets. Now you can’t get another job because most places won’t hire you without an address, and collecting unemployment becomes difficult because if you have no address and no direct deposit you can’t get it mailed to you to claim.
As for the drugs that you say they have chosen to ruin their lives with, a pack of cigarettes, a small bag of weed, some opiates, or alcohol costs a whole lot less than rent for a month or even a motel room for the night.
The financial and housing situation for a lot of people out there in the world is really fragile, and if you add on other issues that I didn’t list such as mental health issues, lack of education or job experience with any education you have, or existing addiction, it can really add up and make it so your going from sleeping in a small bachelor’s apartment one night to sleeping on a park bench the next.
I don’t fully ascribe to the concept of communism myself (it’s a good label for most folks but I’m too picky about nitty gritty stuff so say I like it when I would want to adjust a few things about it), but I definitely think social housing is how you fix homelessness. Cities and states / provinces waste more money dealing with homelessness the way they do now then just building them socialized housing.
Woohoo both systems suck. You can actually believe that just because one system is bad, what is considered the opposite is also bad. Marx was not some omniscient doctor manhattan. He had some ideas. Some were good critiques on capitalist culture. Others were fantasy that do not function in the real world.
Notice how the folks arguing in favor of Communism have sources and receipts, while the folks arguing against it have done nothing but regurgitated Capitalist propaganda. Also note folks who are opposed to Communism and Marx’s philosophy are always forced to admit that it only works on paper, because his logic is irrefutable if you address it with a modicum of intellectual honesty…
I have a whole fucking family, who lived through the USSR. Not a single one of them misses it. Being spied on every step you take, my grandma has the “you never know who’s watching” mentality to this day.
That’s not to say they don’t hate the current regime, but it’s nothing compared to the absolute atrocities of the USSR’s secret police.
Bruh there is a reason Putin is framing his imperialist ideations as a revival of the USSR. Also I’ve watched a shit ton of bald and bankrupt videos where all the old people he talks to go on and on about how times were better under the Soviet governments. Facts dont care about your feelings
You know, it’s a universal thing. That’s what MAGA is about, that’s what Hitler pushed. Glorifying distant past no one really remembers, reinventing it, it’s fucked up, especially if it’s promoted via selective parts of it. You can’t use political stunts as a proof of anything. They sell you dreams because they can’t show something real, they can’t show important systemic improvements. In times of fuck ups, they show you that billboard, shining so bright it’s blinding, while bread prices climb 2-3x to what they were a decade ago. And people indulge in that constructed feeling of it being better before, while government can do whatever they want.
Ok, how about people currently living through communism? 83% of Chinese people believe they live in a democracy, more than in the US. Chinese citizens are on average around 4 times wealthier than their parents. Millennials are the first generation in US history to be poorer than their parents. Most of the wealth in the US is held by boomers who lived through the tail end of new deal social democracy.
Do you also disregard these accounts by people who are currently living through communism? Or will you move the goal post again?
Things got much worse for most citizens of the USSR after it collapsed and state industry was privatized. Life expectancy dropped pretty severely. It shouldn’t be surpassing that anyone who suffered under that economic collapse would tell you the USSR was better.
You’re claiming communism is so great and when presented with links you just go “WELL WHAT ABOUT ALL THIS HUH” and then completely ignore the above. It’s ridiculous. Actual text book definition of what about ism. Seriously stop and think for yourself for two seconds without restarting to this tribal shit slinging mentality.
Yeah, capitalism is bad, we live in it, we can see that happening around us, but you’re eating literal propaganda about communism and ignoring actual verifiable evidence. This isn’t a capitalism vs communism debate, there are more than two fucking systems you smooth brain chud
The holodomor narrative surrounding the ussr wide famine of 32-33 was literal nazi propaganda from open nazi collaborators and was used as a justification for the mass murder of jews in Eastern Europe during the holocaust.
It was debunked in the literal 1930s in the US and now it re-emerges like a zombie during an era where fascism is on the rise. Even anticommunist academics like Applebaum, Davies, and Conquest say it wasn’t a genocide.
What a crock of shit. Practically every historian says it was caused by soviet policy. The only debate that occurs if whether it was due to stupidity or intentional genocide.
Literally none of your sources definitively claim it was a genocide except the university of Minnesota one which cites Davies and Applebaum who later says it wasn’t.
Also lol, you use Wikipedia, a random university of Minnesota webpage, KellogInsight, and I dont even know where you got your last source but it literally cites Wheatcroft and Davies amongst others who do not argue it was a genocide after examining the soviet archives.
Gonna tell me how the Holocaust was a lie too?
No, the holocaust is a well documented historical fact, unlike the holodomor. The soviet wide famine of 1932 and 33 is a well documented historical fact, it is also not considered a genocide by mainstream anticommunist historians, who argue to what extent soviet policies and which policies worsened the famine.
Also ironic that you ask “do you also deny the holocaust” given the holodomor myth was used as justification to kill Jewish people during the holocaust and was later used as justification for collaboration with the holocaust.
Here is a well respected Jewish historian and activist on it:
Wow the lengths commies go to deny actual genocide.
We all know communism is an ideology strictly for the uneducated and violent, why try so hard to make it seem like something else? The countless sexual and ethnic minorities murdered by communism due to its inherent hateful nature is something only the nazis on the other end of the fascism-spectrum rivaled.
The lengths liberals will to go to buy into fascist atrocity propaganda that was used as justification for the mass slaughter of Jewish people by nazis and nazi collaborators
The countless sexual and ethnic minorities murdered by communism due to its inherent hateful nature is something only the nazis on the other end of the fascism-spectrum rivaled.
You’re literally doing fascist propaganda. Here is a liberal Jewish holocaust historian and activist writing on it:
Fascists kill minorities, wow, who would’ve thought. It’s amazing how many commies pretend to label themselves as anti racist and pro trans rights, yet just so happen to advocate for an ideology based on murdering people on the basis of their ethnicity and sexual/gender orientation. Coincidence don’t you think?
Started off? Which minority was slaughtered in Cuba? What about Korea? How about Afghanistan? China? Vietnam? The USSR? I mean at the start. The USSR did do some legitimately bad things to minorities (particularly German, polish, and Korean) in the lead up to and during ww2) but that was later on and those paled in comparison to the crimes of their capitalist contemporaries.
Please read upon actual history before pretending to know any of it. Every nation you mentioned slaughtered their minorities, it is intrinsic to the ideology, a core foundation. Communism without unchecked violence, aggression and ethnic cleansing isn’t communism.
Also loving the token Whataboutism™ at the end, sign of a true tankie lmao, y-y-yes all communist nations have cleaned off their trans folk b-b-but there are some liberal nations too that did it, even though liberalism is the only ideology that has the capability to support a non-violent society lmao get fucked transphobe.
Please read upon actual history before pretending to know any of it.
Could you give me a recommendation on history books that go over the slaughter of minorities in Cuba, Vietnam, and Korea then? Since you know so much about it.
Oh, that is what I thought. Have you considered actually talking to Cubans, either people who live there or cuban immigrants who arent aggrieved about their grandpa’s plantation?
Communism without unchecked violence, aggression and ethnic cleansing isn’t communism.
Fuck I gotta tell my local commune that they aren’t really communist
Also loving the token Whataboutism™
Fallacy fallacy. If we are judging ideologies on how many atrocities they commit, you have to judge them against other ideologies.
even though liberalism is the only ideology that has the capability to support a non-violent society
Lol 20 million people die a year of starvation or lack of clean water under liberal hegemony.
The archetypal liberal state shoots thousands of black men a year, and creates conditions that mean 40 percent of homeless youth are lgbt. It has the largest prison system in history, and has killed millions of civilians in wars of aggression over the last 20 years. You’re projecting the crimes of capitalism onto communism, consider criticizing communism for what it actually did wrong.
No one is going to deny that making perpetual motion device is good. How are you going to do that?
Do you have source and receipts for real life communism solving housing problem? Not being better than capitalism. Solving. Being better than capitalism is kinda low bar you know. There are plenty of other things that real life capitalism does better than real life communism, hence communism failure. No one is going to show up with receipts and sources because obvious.
You show us tents as a capitalist solution. That’s not a capitalist solution. That’s the problem itself. You’re misleading.
because his logic is irrefutable if you address it with a modicum of intellectual honesty…
Can you at least try to sound less douche about things?
The joke is that Capitalism DOES NOT have a solution to homelessness because there is zero profit motive to solve it. And facts dont care about your feelngs, you cant refute Marx’s philosophy while being intellectual honest. Capitalist Economists study Das Kapital because Marx was so fucking spot on.
No need to refute Marx, reality has already proven time and time again that communism doesn’t work in practice.
Btw your argument only applies to “pure” capitalism, without any government interference. Homelessness is not really an issue in many European countries.
Tell me you haven’t read Marx without telling me you haven’t read Marx.
Seriously though, Marx is like the guy you go read if you want a ruthless critique of idealism. I’d go so far as to say it’s the reason his theories became so popular in the first place.
You’re right, nobody has ever cared about Marx. No communist revolutionaries anywhere have ever called themselves Marxists. If they did, then their projects must have surely collapsed by now. That’s because Marx was very clear that his political theories were not made to be adaptable or revisable based on new information and changing conditions. No, that would be far too scientific for someone we can agree was clearly an idealist.
Yes, that’s why there is no pure capitalist country anywhere.
you cant refute Marx’s philosophy while being intellectual honest.
Why are you keep doing this? I said I don’t disagree with Marx. It’d be nice if communism can happen. Facts don’t care about your feelings either and all the shitty attemps of communism failed due to human being shitty. If you have to kill off people to keep the ideology, only to fail after about few decades, it has some reality problems.
And again, I cannot stress this enough, can you please stop sounding like a 16 year old kid who just read few paragraphs of Marx going iamverysmart about it?
The existence of state run social services and regulations does not mean a country is not fully capitalist if you’re using Marx’s understanding of what capitalism is. Additionally I think there is a misconception that communism depends on altruistic behavior. It really doesn’t.
I mean even in the case of USSR they had to wait for more than a decade to actually get a livable apartment, not to mention severe lack of infrastructure…
But of course, better than people just kicked out to the streets. But then again, less is not none. The housing situation definitely didn’t do USSR’s overall economic status any favor.
Soviet Union? It was uncommon for a family of 6 to live in a small apartment. You can even see it in old soviet movies where apartments would be separated by curtains (common comedy trope).
In Communist countries people starve to death because of famine, in Capitalist countries people also strave to death because of famine while still starving to death after famines are over because they cant afford groceries. https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/13aca946-0a00-4d6f-80d5-f014778b2cbe.jpeg
Yeah that’s called late stage Communism, which we have never achieved as humanity. Late stage Capitalism is currently pushing more and more folks into dangerous housing situations like the bottom right quadrant of this meme. Capitalism and Utopia are oxymorons while Communism and Utopia are synonymous.
There were still people that lived in the streets in the USSR. Also, the housing the USSR provided wasn’t really that… great… I watch a Russian YouTuber (NFKRZ) who has talked about Soviet architecture in not just Russia, but other former USSR countries and shows that yes it’s good they were built, they weren’t very well built.
The USSR had many problems, and bureaucracy was a big problem. I never understood why tankies love the USSR so much when the USSR didn’t truly get rid of class. Those in the government lived like kings compared to the common man, who yes lived better than they had before but still not that well due to the bloated and mismanagement of the government.
Idk, the fact that they even had a centralized government like that seems like… the opposite of communism to me.
I think what people don’t fully understand is that Marxism is meant to be scientific. That means that there will likely be many imperfect and failed attempts at building a socialist society before one comes along that is stable enough to outlast outside interference from capitalist states.
As such, most people I know who like the USSR are also it’s biggest critiques. Unfortunately, there is so much misinformation about the USSR that most discussions about it online are just about delineating truth from propaganda.
They don’t call you old fashioned for that, they call you tankie. It’s because they’re mad that you don’t buy the bullshit they push. Look at all the claims they make about the USSR here while providing no evidence or context for the situations they claim people were living in.
They compare apples to oranges when it’s communism they are criticizing and stick their fingers in their ears while screaming when it comes to criticizing crapitalism.
Not a tankie, but the USSR had mostly solved this problem, despite all its other issues. There did exist some homelessness, but nowhere near the extent of current USA.
Well, I’m from a post-USSR country and a substantial part of this was the criminalization of homelessness. Can’t have homeless people, if you lock them up (be it in a prison or asylum).
Then again, just about anyone, who did not conform to the party’s message got locked up. Getting your place bugged at the slightest hint you might be up to something disagreeable and all that good stuff. The secret police could disappear and or beat you up without any real justification.
I hate late-stage capitalism as much as you, but coming from a country that’s been through this, I am extremely reluctant to give the rotten and frankly repugnant USSR regime any credit.
Sure, you could get a piece of land in Siberian tundra at any time, I would not call that housing.
Moving to a city was way more complicated than in capitalist US. You could not simply buy an apartment. You had to be allocated an apartment by the government. And you needed connections for that. Or bribes. Ideally both. If you think your local rabid Republicans do not care for little wage slave men, you never experienced USSR, it was like that but 100x worse.
Vodka had been linked to the Russian economy under multiple Czars. I’m not sure that Stalin could have separated the two even if he had wanted to. Admittedly it doesn’t appear that he wanted to.
I’m pretty sure that the USSR was screwed the moment that Lenin returned from exile in Germany, or when Wilson was elected. Take your pick.
The Menchaviks would have been a better government.
The mechaviks literally wanted to continue ww1 and have a psuedo democracy where the bourgeoisie were literally guaranteed a majority of seats, wtf are you talking about?
I wasn’t aware of that. I was under the impression they were less extreme than the Bolsheviks, and didn’t want to execute everyone that wasn’t a hard core Bolshevik
They were more extreme than the bolseviks but less extreme than the monarchists, they were just on the side of capitalists so were painted with a nicer brush by capitalist historians
Thanks, i pride myself on making innovative memes that point out the glaring hypocrisies of Capitalism in new and inventive meme formats. Thankfully the glaring hypocrisies of Capitalism have been around for decades giving me plenty of material for OC. /s
Lmao what is fictional about this?! Are you saying the homeless camps are fictional? Or are you saying the soviet priotitizing prefabricated apartments to increase housing supply is fictional?
No duh, they were built to be very affordable so you wouldn’t have as many homeless people. It’s incredible that you thought that answer was somehow insightful
They were built to be affordable for working class and had nothing to do with homelesness… Communists/socialists did not acknowledge existence of homelessness because it would mean party admitting of making a mistake or system being flawed.
Affordable and available housing has everything to do with homelessness though, it’s one of the best ways to actually keep people from becoming homeless in the first place. If more people can afford a place to live, less people will be homeless. Won’t fix all of it but a huge chunk anyhow
I have no idea if or how much old Eastern Bloc countries lied about the number of homeless. I wouldn’t be surprised at all, but I haven’t seen any studies or statistics about this so I can’t assume they were all lying or that the situation was universally worse than in Western countries.
So if one person picks 1000 apples per day and the second picks 2 apples, then they split apples 501 to each. Good luck convincing the first person that this is good for them
So Instead, one person picks 1000 apples, gives them all to the property owner, and then receives enough money to buy 50 apples, yet you’d prefer that over having to split the 1000 apples evenly.
And for both situations I would need ask at least one of them “Why do you need so many apples? Why not give some of them to those who need them instead of accumulating them?”
Think about it, you’re already living the situation you presented but the person picking two apples is in a managerial position and gets to keep the thousand apples you picked in exchange for the two apples they picked.
Except we aren't talking about two people, are we? We're talking about entire populations of people.
And when people have their needs met, they are more able to be productive. And they are more likely to believe in the good of the system that supports them, as they can see the tangible results of that system in their daily life. They can see how their contribution to the system benefits them. Making them more likely to be happy to contribute.
Will some percentage of people under-contribute because of laziness? Sure. But who cares? That percentage is small. And we have the technology to compensate many times over now.
Why the hell do we make society more miserable for everyone, forcing everyone to live under the threat of poverty if they don't work, just to force this small percentage to work against their will? Not to mention completely screw over anyone who cannot work for reasons beyond their control, because we subject them to this insane level of scrutiny because we're paranoid that they might just be lazy.
We can choose a cooperative system, or the antagonistic one we currently have, where we are all at each others' throats because of suspicion that someone might be getting something that they "don't deserve".
You still have the problem of misaligned incentives together with the fact that the only way to mitigate it is through coercion. This is why all communism inevitably leads to authoritarianism. The strength of capitalism is that it can absorb and indeed is designed to allow for the fact that humanity’s cooperative impulse --due to the fact that we evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to live in small bands of about 30 to 150 people-- cannot work at the level of the modern nation state.
You still have the problem of misaligned incentives
Not really sure what you mean by that. Socialism leads to better alignment of incentives. If everyone is benefitting from the system, contributions to the system are incentivised.
That is the opposite of capitalism, where the individual tries to gain any advantage they can, even at the expense of everyone else. And broad advances and contributions of work benefit very few people, by design. That leads to lower trust, which further entrenches the idea that the individual has to look out for themselves, and is thus incentivised to game to system.
together with the fact that the only way to mitigate it is through coercion
But that’s not the point, the point of this approach is that like in cooperatives, there are minimum productivity goals and many roles to play, and so on. Obviously like you point out, no one is that stupid.
Now, consider the needs of people who are old or need help. Like helping your old man, I’m sure you don’t mind getting more apples. I wouldn’t. Like you, I would get angry if I’m the only useful one hahaha, but that what productivity and organization is for. No one lives in a bubble.
Now… What you said, I’ve seen it happen in capitalism. Not in small businesses, normally the owner is in the store too. I mean when we talk about the big bucks like a better example. They expect you to handle of those apples, and ain’t offering you a comfy home neither.
This is disingenuous: the fundamental principle of socialism and Communism is democracy. And, credit where credit is due, capitalism forced us to socialize the production of goods and services (it now takes many people to “produce” anything). Currently, there is no discussion about who gets the profit of socialized labour, it goes to the people who own the workplace, which are rarely the workers.
So, to make your example realistic, you and this other person are part of a community that grows apples (pick any rural community). Together, you all own the fields.
How do you decide what each person gets? You come to a consensus. There are so many variables; is the other person injured?young?sick?old? Or really bad at picking apples? Maybe you are on some apple picking super serum. How do you decide who gets what? The same way people usually do; you decide together.
In your example, having a blanket rule as you suggest would never work, and would be unfair, but it is what happens now in our advanced capitalistic economies. If you pick 1000 apples for a company, how many do you keep? Or more realistically; once the apples are sold, how much of the.profits go to you? You have no choice. You work, get paid, and go home. You work harder and you end up with just about the same amount at the end. The only saving grace is if you work hard enough, one day you might be promoted by the generous owner to a position where you are no longer the poor schmuck who does all the work. But that poor schmuck will always still exist, it’s just no longer you.
This is under the assumption that there is a surplus in society that can satisfy the needs of everyone. Marx’s point is that technological development and industrialization could make this possible. As such, the need to motivate people to work harder is not necessary.
Prior to such a surplus existing, the distribution of goods would be more akin to “From each according to their ability, to each according their contribution”. That ensures people are motivated to maximize their productivity as long as that’s still necessary.
I have no problem with communism(i think socdem is a better system but thats a discussion for another day) but the moment a tankie here mentions anything about the soviet union being better than capitalism just look up holodomor.
If you want recent coverage from everyday people, you can find social media posts from Chinese tourists. You can always Look at the state media. You already know they’ll be bias in their own favor, but that doesn’t mean everything they publish is fake. Look for other sources for confirmation. Most of it will be boring reports, which is less likely to be exaggerated.
Capitalism has a solution to the tent problem though
UK - The home secretary is proposing new laws to restrict the use of tents by homeless people, arguing that many of them see it as a “lifestyle choice”.
San Diego already banned camping in the city. The county board of supervisors either has proposed that they do the same or already has.
San Diego county is bigger than two states. They are trying to outlaw homelessness in an area about 65 miles north to south, and roughly the 86 miles east of The Pacific Ocean.
These are almost all Democrats, btw. We didn’t vote for Republicans.
Everything is political, buddy. Maybe stop plugging your ears every time you see a drop of political discourse that you disagree with and start listening.
Start listening to a post made by an obvious talkie that has the depth of your mom? The only “argument” in this post is “hahahahahahaha communism good hahahahaha”.
If you want a political discourse I’m open to that. But to start with such a closed minded view is not the right ground to start a discussion. I even agree with this one, but the way this is presented should not be on a meme sub.
Tf? Politics are currently pretty difficult and I am spending way to much of my time discussing it. Excuse me for just wanting to see a few bad memes on a meme sub and not slide into the next discussion. I don’t even know what to answer to bullshit like this. You know what also was “literal nazi talking point”? Food. Sex. Drugs. After all they are still human and a human is defined by more than just their ideology.
Why is this shit always communist vs capitalist, like we’ve only got 2 answers avaliable. You fuckers never set foot in a communist country and worship this shit
Fucking communist countries have killed how many millions of their own citizens? Don’t really think showing a picture of some buildings is enough to prove that they actually solved any issues. They may have solved those issues for some who were lucky enough to get an apartment, but don’t be a hexbear and pretend they housed everyone.
And no, I don’t want a response with a link about hurr duer capitalism bad, yeah I know, but I live in capitalism so I already know that.
It’s even worse than that. Most Lemmy commies are aggressive sectarians who cling to a very particular form of the ideology, while rejecting all forms of moderate leftism and Marxist revisionism. It’s extremely obnoxious, and their bizarre, outdated philosophy is a primary reason why people are skeptical of leftist politics.
I’m still confused and alarmed that the only alternative brought up is communism, not socialism. So far as I know, the core difference is transfer of power - one is peaceful, one is violent.
So in communism, your home might be six feet underground because “It is necessary to achieve the revolution, comrade.” Absolutely zero chance of a leader that wants the best for their people, apparently.
The problem is that a leader who wants the best for their people isn’t sufficient to actually achieve that. What you need is for everyone to be making decisions about what’s best.
You’re also taking a snapshot of the most regulated industry in the US. Building high rises is illegal in huge swaths of urban areas. Before we say the free market isn’t providing an answer cab we actually try it? I’m talking removing exclusionary zoning, speeding up the permit process and reducing the power of local action committees, and reforming the broken heritage process that’s used by rich people to keep their areas from densifying.
Real socialism leads to communism. I want to call what I am advocating for as cultural marxism, but unfortunately that term has antisemitic connotations, while also perfectly encapsulating the gradual shift in the publics perception of Marxist ideology I am advocating for with memes such as this. I am not advocating for a violent revolution, but I wont deny the fact that when the powers that be make a peaceful revolution impossible, a violent revolution is inevitable.
Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production. There sre many, many forms, such as Anarcho-Syndicalism, Marxism-Leninism, Democratic Socialism, Market Socialism, Libertarian Socialism, Anarcho-Communism, Council Communism, Left Communism, and more.
Communism is a more specific form of Socialism, by which you have achieved a Stateless, Classless, moneyless society. Many Communist ideologies are transitional towards Communism, such as the USSR’s Marxism-Leninism or China’s Dengism and Maoism.
Whether by reform or Revolution, the form doesn’t change.
Holy shit. That makes so much sense as to why I hated those books as a kid. Thanks for that insight. I knew something wasn’t working properly in Earthsea.
Nationalise essential needs and create State corporations, let capitalism have fun with non essentials. If don’t care if private producers make wine or funky clothing or big houses, the government should make sure everyone has food to eat, basic clothes to wear and a place to live.
On that last part, buildings with 8 living units or more should be ran by a non profit State corporation, charge people based on the cost of maintenance and the salaries required, send a check if people were charged too much at the end of the year.
State corporations are private companies whose profit go to the government instead of an owner or investors. The place in North America that has the cheapest electricity is Quebec and that’s because it’s a State corporation producing it, it still makes billions in profit that is then reinvested by the government.
So no, free markets isn’t necessary. Heck, the free market is what makes it so the US government is the one that spends the most per capita for healthcare even if it only covers part of the population.
You left out, healthcare, education, higher education, and Internet access. While we are covering basic human rights, let’s make sure we cover all the basic human rights.
Outside of internet access these things are already nationalised in first world countries (I know exactly what’s implied by what I’m saying). I didn’t feel the need to enumerate every single thing.
Fucking communist countries have killed how many millions of their own citizens?
Bruh, centuries of capitalist exploitation of its citizens and treating them like a disposable commodity would like to have a word on the whole 'citizens killed by their own country' topic.
How many thousands or millions of citizens die yearly because they can't afford to live in this fucked up system?
Lmfao not at all, the dude literally said whataboutisms are the only arguments for Communism, so i linked him a copy of Das Kapital. Unfortunately you clearly lack the reading comprehension to consume it.
None? People don’t starve to death in western countries. And where they do the issue is lack of infrastructure. A communist government couldn’t conjure the resources needed to build that out of thin air either.
saying that “people don’t starve to death in western countries” without understanding in the slightest the actual harms of food insecurity and how it leads to death is a very accurate representation of the scientific ignorance and sociopathic lack of empathy that capitalism supporters bring to the table in these kinds of discussions a hundred times out of a hundred
None? People don’t starve to death in western countries. And where they do the issue is lack of infrastructure.
"This thing doesn't happen, and when it does, it's not the fault of capitalism itself" is a monumentally stupid argument. Especially when talking about the homeless population, which absolutely does have people that starve.
A communist government couldn’t conjure the resources needed to build that out of thin air either.
And the capitalist economy chose not to build it because it wasn't profitable, or after it was built, it was too expensive to be used.
Where is your great communist country ?? Oh wait, it’s not there. It doesn’t exist and it never will. Capitalism works. Not perfect but it works. Your idealized version of communism is great but so is my idealized version of capitalism where everyone has a shot at the American dream!
Bullshit it doesn’t happen in the west. 12.8% of US households were considered food insecure in 2022, with 5.1% of that being considered to have VERY low food security(Source). Over 20,000 Americans died of malnutrition in 2022, more than double the number in 2018(Source).
There’s also nearly 30 vacant homes for every 1 homeless person in the US, so there’s plenty of room, too. Nobody needs a 2nd home when over half a million people don’t even have one.
In the west, the main cause of malnutrition isn’t a lack of calories, but a difficulty in access (from availability or price or other factors) to healthy foods with the required nutrition for a healthy life or from an excess of certain nutrients. This is often manifested as conditions such a obesity and type II diabetes. So malnutrition does impact people in the west.
Maybe you should have actually read that article before linking it. It discusses in detail the reasons for malnutrition being an issue, and none of those reasons is being unable to afford food. The problems are typically due to age and diseases.
It’s simple… If you convince the communists that the capitalists are trying to destroy them, (and vice versa), they fight each other, distracting them from the real enemy: the 1% with enough money to directly influence the folk that make the rules that keep them in the 1% club. We’re fighting culture wars so we won’t fight class wars, my friend.
The 1% exist in every form of government, my friend. Billionaire capitalists == Russian Oligarchs. The name changes based on the audience, but the idea is money influences politics. The folk with the most money to do so are the 1% who actually rule, not the interchangeable talking heads who take their money to live a comfortable life acting as the mouthpiece (or scapegoat) for that group.
Couple things: tiered income would likely exist in early stages of Communism, and certainly in almost all forms of Socialism. Marx makes it exceptionally clear that both intense and skilled labor are represented as condensed unskilled labor.
Either way, there are examples of anti-capitalism. Chiapas and Rojava are more Libertarian Socialist. There’s also countries like Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos, who appear to be attempting to reject Capitalism still and still operating on some basis of Marxism-Leninism Socialism. China relies on Capitalism as their dominant mode of production, but claims to be Socialist by 2050, though that remains to be seen.
The nations you think of as “Communist” are typically Communist in ideology, but are building towards it through Socialism. Just as Feudalism gave way to Capitalism, so to do Marxists believe Capitalism is a necessary stage before Socialism, which is a necessary stage before Communism.
Exactly! This is exactly what I’m saying. The 1% is still the 1% calling the shots… No matter where they are or what you want to call the type of government they influence.
Yes, so you’re proving the Communists and Socialists in this thread correct. Across all Capitalist systems, the bourgeoisie are still the ones calling the shots. Therefore, a better system would be a more decentralized, worker owned system, perhaps along the lines of Socialism or Anarchism, to reach an eventual state of Communism in the far future.
What exactly do you take issue with Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism here? You appear to be advocating for a more top-down system like Capitalism, than a bottom-up system. Your argument appears to uphold your criticism.
Oh! I see. No…I’m only saying the minute you start talking any “-isms”, you trigger feelings of tribalism that exist in all of humanity. We want to be on the “good team”. No one wants to be on the bad team, and that feeling is what the Uber wealthy uses to keep us busy. Debating all of the “-isms” is the problem. Let’s figure out how to take care of the masses so basic human needs are met, allowing humanity to prosper, and figure out what the hell to call it later. Otherwise, we just quibble over semantics and nothing gets done.
I mean absolutely no offense by this, but that’s a load of Utopian bullshit.
People use “-isms” not to divide into tribalism, but to describe methods and structures. If you can identify problems with modern, Capitalist society, calling it “Capitalism” is not meant to divide anyone. Similarly, the various leftist strategies, such as Marxism-Leninism, Anarcho-Communism, Council Communism, Market Socialism, Anarcho-Syndiclaism, and so forth, are all different proposed ways of tackling the same problems.
How do you propose people move towards a solution if nobody knows what the fuck everyone else is doing?
First…I love this discussion. Thank you for it. It’s what made me love Reddit in the early years, and why I’m so enamored with Lemmy. Secondly…You make an excellent point; one I can’t refute. I don’t know how we move towards a solution without having a way to succinctly describe an ideologic structure. I just hate how partisan the world becomes, and how much the media plays off of it to help the fuckers in charge sell ads, or maintain power, wherever you live and whatever ism you subscribe to. Maybe all I’m doing is just missing the point and muddying the waters…
You should really read a copy of the Communist Manifesto, i dont think you are muddying the waters, you are merely trying to look through the clouds of sentiment that have been stirred up in front of you your whole life.
You’re starting to get it. You should read Manufacturing Consent, by Noam Chomsky. He describes the very mechanisms by which the bourgeoisie use the media to control the people into doing their bidding.
Do you think the Russian oligarchs, who by the way pen a FAR larger portion of the Russian economy than their American counterparts, appeared from nowhere after the collapse of the Soviet Union? The Soviets had an extremely wealthy and influential elite
The 1% are the Capitalist and they are trying to defeat the Communists and surpress/continue to exploit the Prolitariat with every tool at their vast disposal. The folks in the comments defending Capitalism are all members of the Prolitariat brainwashed into thinking they are down on their luck Millionaires.
Look… It’s all tribalism, in the end. We can argue semantics, but doing so it’s exactly their point. It keeps us busy with pedantry, while they continue to enjoy their wealth from on high. I am not educated enough to debate the pros and cons of each group, but I am intelligent enough to smell an attempt to distract me from the point. To know there’s some sleight of hand fuckery happening right in front of my face.
Yes you are intelligent, and so close to getting it, the cultural warfare bullshit is all a distraction to keep you from noticing the class warfare being waged against the working class by the 1% who continues to rob value from us to horde weath far beyond our comprehension. I cant recommend Marx’s writings enough, there is so much slight of hand fuxkery going on and it SHOULD rightfully piss you off!
Bruh if I HAD to be right I would still be a devoted Libertarian simping for the free market. I love being proven wrong, its how people and ergo society are supposed to evolve and grow.
What ideology is it, again, that champions working class people to take their power back? It’s certainly not right wing.
If you think the world is fucked because of the greed of the 1%, and you want those people to pay for their crimes through class war, you’re communist.
What ideology is it, again, that champions working class people to take their power back?
That sounds like a free market to me. When people have the power to determine their own fate, and how they engage with others for economic coordination.
When everyone has the ability to choose how they engage, that’s called a free market. The economic system based on free markets is called capitalism.
A free market means zero regulation, so I hope you like drinking poison because “ain’t no gubmint telling me how to bottle my soda!”
When people have the power to determine their own fate, and how they engage with others for economic coordination.
This requires kicking capital out of the economy. That would be defeating capitalism.
When everyone has the ability to choose how they engage, that’s called a free market
No, it’s called voluntary participation. Free markets inevitably trend toward monopolies and concentrations of power, because the supply side is not held to any standard.
The economic system based on free markets is called capitalism.
And look where it’s gotten us - with a 1% bleeding the rest dry.
Lol no, I do not say. No ruling class. No government. That’s communism.
It’s bonkers to me that you talk a big talk about class and class conflict, yet are opposed to left wing politics. Where do you think those terms come from?
What’s even more bonkers is that you seem to think communism has never said anything about the 1%, when that is the biggest problem communists won’t shut up about!
I don’t think you know what projection is. The comment I replied to literally said that the 1% and class are the problem, and that communists are distracted. Couldn’t be more off base.
It’s simple… If you convince the communists that the capitalists are trying to destroy them, (and vice versa), they fight each other, distracting them from the real enemy: the 1% with enough money to directly influence the folk that make the rules that keep them in the 1% club. We’re fighting culture wars so we won’t fight class wars, my friend.
You’re so dense. I’m not advocating or simping got capitalism here. That’s what I’m trying to communicate, but you’re too fucking dense to even see that when I lay it out.
Both are bad. Just because I say these turds who worship an imaginary and propagandized version of communism are dorks doesn’t mean I’m arguing in favor of capitalism. For fucks sake learn to read
You are 100% correct in your assertion, my anti Mario sex toy friend, and I love your passion. I worry that the minute you call someone’s intelligence into question, they’ll take a defensive posture and stop thinking critically. Critical thinking is what we need more than anything else in this world right now. That’s what’s in short supply. It’s why the news is constantly being flooded with new things, and why there are so few media outlets that don’t have a slant. If I can get you outraged at team blue, or team red, or team US, or team THEM, your anger overrides your reason and you stop thinking about who benefits from the distraction provided by us arguing over whatever this new bullshit thing is we’re arguing over. Hopefully that last statement makes sense.
Not to mention all the fascist militaries supported by the US that regularly engaged on mass murders of “communists”. Indonesia, brazil, chile, south korea, south vietnam, etc… Ultimately they dont care, they just want to discredit communism by whatever means possible.
Except there isn’t. we tried that then the capitalists bought the weaker willed politicians and used them to undermine any regulation. Capitalism is a cancer and must be excised as such.
We literally have. Look at the massive literacy, life expectancy, and political rights increases under literally every single communist government compared to what came before them instead of comparing them to some utopian ideal that capitalism compares even less favorably to.
life expectancy, and political rights increases under literally every single communist government
Are you not aware of the massive incarceration, labor camps, starvation, conscription, etc?
Have you read about the Battle of Stalingrad? Do you seriously not know the stories of how life expectancy and political rights were totally and utterly squashed many times by communist governments?
Are you not aware of the massive incarceration, labor camps, starvation, conscription, etc?
Are you aware the gulags never reached the same scale as the current US prison system? Are you aware that under the Soviets and under the CPC previously periodic famines under the previous governments stopped after initial industrialization?
I will leave you with this quote, ironically about a liberal revolution against monarchists
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
Right. Communism vs capitalism is just more centralization. There are plenty of decentralized options to balance things as too much centralization, no matter the political system leads to corruption.
That is the death of capitalism. That’s capitalism (based on free markets) devolving into oligopoly (based on regulatory capture and tightly-restricted markets).
Capitalism doesn’t last any better than any other institution. It degrades into something else. The thing it degrades into is a centrally-controlled market, similar to what you find in socialism.
fucking communist countries have killed how many millions of their own citizens
Most of these articles cite the Black Book of Communism, which goes to absurd lengths to inflate the death toll of Communism, for example counting all the millions of nazi and soviet soldiers killed on the eastern front as victims of communism, counting the entire death toll of the Vietnam war, and even counting declining birth rates as deaths due to communism.
Noam Chomsky used the same methodology to argue that, according to Black Book logic, capitalism in India alone, from 1947–1979, could be blamed for more deaths than communism worldwide from 1917–1979.
This is not “one or the another” situation, communism is the next qualitative stage in development of society. It solves the primary contradiction that we experience in capitalism, that is socialized production being privatized by individuals, aka capitalists.
You can’t just declare communism by signing a document, because it is a process of development in which small quantitative changes in production (socialism) lead to a qualitative change (communism), thus to achieve the communism stage you have to achieve a certain level of development.
This is why China is considered a communist country by marxists-leninist even though qualitatively it is a capitalist country. They are actively working to develop communism, this can be clearly seen throughout their rhetoric (i.e. “The Governance of China”) and their material results.
The problem with China being that it’s authoritarian, not that it’s capitalist or communist. There’s no choice other than the Communist Party, so when the party is wildly corrupt, you have no recourse at all short of revolution. And we all know what China does to counter-revolutionaries.
People don’t have much recourse in the US either. The two party system just obfuscates that reality. I’d actually argue that because revolution is the only alternative to the communist party in China, the government has to be more responsive to citizen demands than the US.
And that is a problem to whom? Every single state is authoritarian, the question is whose interests are they protecting.
China is clearly a dictatorship of the proletariat and they use authority to protect the interests of the proletariat. Yes, sometimes their policy is wrong and does harm but ultimately they work to improve their policies, governing is a learning experience after all.
It’s a problem because people don’t feel like stakeholders when they don’t have a say and can’t participate in their system of governance. This in turn means that they aren’t incentivized to willingly participate and have to be forced or indoctrinated, both of which are violations of human rights.
One party where a basic platform is defined and differences are expressed vibrantly on top of that is better than two parties that brand themselves as different but only offer a couple of aesthetic differences and concessions to keep people mad at the opposing party and not the underlying structure
…You’re really saying that one party where you have no functional choice is better than a multi-party system, just because you think that Republicans and Dems are too alike, while ignoriing the plethora of other parties that not only actually exist in the US, but hold office at local and state level?
friend. You’re so worried about a one party system because you’re thinking of American parties. You know how Mike Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders are both ran under the same party? In a proper single party state there’s more range than that.
One party with multiple functional approaches that get whittled down through democratic consensus is more democratic than being told to pick between two relatively similar options. There is more of a gap between liberals and Maoists in the CPC, both of which hold power in office, than there are between the democrats and republicans.
People that want to participate in politics can join the CPC, in fact it has more than 100m official members. Also inside the CPC there are several factions with differents views, so no its not a monolithic entity.
What does “authoritarian” mean? Shouldn’t we reserve that word for the country with the largest police force, biggest military, and the highest prison population per capita in the world?
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