Cowbee

@Cowbee@lemm.ee

This town, in fact, has more than enough room for the two of us

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Cowbee,

This is obviously a leftist meme making fun of liberal and conservative fighting. It’s from the perspective of someone to the left of liberals, not between liberals and conservatives.

Cowbee,

Being between two ideologies is not a virtue in and of itself. Refusing to align with either of 2 generally shitty Capitalist parties, and being a centrist, are completely different things.

Cowbee,

It depends on why you aren’t supporting either party. If it’s because the libs are too radical and the conservatives are too fascist, then you’re a centrist liberal. If you’re legitimately outside the scope of those two, such as to the left (or somehow to the right), then you aren’t a centrist.

Being extreme isn’t wrong either. The strength of a position with respect to current society says nothing about the founding logic for said position. Climate change, for example, must be radically acted on to prevent even worse results from happening, and it must happen now or we will suffer even more.

Cowbee,

Okay, so it sounds like you’re a leftist, and likely to agree that the bourgeoisie deliberately pits the Proletariat against itself as a means to prevent unified action.

Cowbee,

I’d argue that the people who think Socialism can only work with abundance, even Communism, fail to understand that Socialism and Communism must be built over a long time, and imagine concepts like “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” must be applied to a pre-existing Capitalist economy.

Really, they just don’t see the timescale. There’s no meaningful reason Socialism cannot happen today with current productive forces.

Cowbee,

Couple things, here.

  1. Define “thriving,” even the most famously abusive Socialist economies like the USSR managed to double life expectancy, and achieve other good metrics like free Healthcare and education, which even modern Capitalist economies struggle with.
  2. “Capitalism” did not make everyone’s lives better. Development did. That’s why the USSR, in spite of its top-down, brutal structure, managed to double life expectancy.
  3. Simple “blind brand loyalty” and monopolization are not the only hallmarks of “Late-Stage Capitalism.” Other hallmarks include rampant consumerism, bullshit jobs, stagnating wages with respect to productivity, further alienation from labor, increased Imperialism, and more.
  4. Blind brand loyalty isn’t the issue here, and you cannot “fix” Capitalist exploitation within Capitalism, only make it more bearable.

All in all, lots of assumptions with no ground to stand on. As a leftist, I think it’s safe to say that democracy is generally a good thing, as is decentralization, so a better system than top-down Capitalism would be an economy with democratic participation from the bottom-up. Communism can achieve this.

Cowbee,

Socialism in the traditional Marxist path is a transitional step to Communism, yes. Communism, however, is fully anti-market, and as such is anti-competition. Communism is a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society, perhaps you meant to say a system like Market Socialism should precede Communism, rather than some impossible form of competitive Communism?

Cowbee, (edited )

I think your biggest issue is that you’re comparing a developing country that was severely underdeveloped before the USSR rose with a developed economy, as though they can be meaningfully compared. If your metrics for thriving consists of looking at people’s access to luxury commodities in a country that saw the bulk of the fighting in WWII, was founded in a Civil War during WWI, and was a backwater, feudal landscape that hadn’t even reached full Capitalism yet, then I’m afraid you aren’t being honest.

Let this be clear: I am not a Stalinist, nor am I saying the USSR was “good.” However, my point is that even in the USSR, the principles of Socialism are so sound that it dramatically improved people’s lives over what came before, and since becoming Capitalist, wealth inequality skyrocketed and life expectancy sharply dropped until the last decade.

As for control over their lives, the citizens of the USSR in many ways had more freedoms, and in many ways less freedoms. They couldn’t go against the party in any meaningful way, but the Soviet Democracy meant that they generally had more local control than workers in Capitalist workplaces. I would personally like to have the best of both worlds, more democracy, without top-down Capitalism.

Edit: as an example for the last point, George Lucas famously said that he was jealous of filmmakers’ freedoms in the USSR, as he claimed that creating movies for profit was even more constricting than not being able to criticize the Communist Party.

Cowbee,

Based

Cowbee,

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?

Cowbee,

Why did Napoleon take power after the French Revolution if Capitalism doesn’t have dictators every time a revolution occurs?

Cowbee,

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.

Cowbee,

A number of reasons. Just like you claim a Communist party almost destroyed your country, Capitalist parties destroy and are destroying many countries as well. The existence of bad Communist parties does not itself mean Communism is structurally a bad thing, as pursuit of a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society is a noble goal for humanity.

I think it’s fair to say that decentralization is a good check against Authoritarianism, and as such, this should be extended to the workplace, not just government.

As far as why Lemmy leans left, the founder is a Communist, and principles of decentralization and federation tend to appeal far more to leftists, while Capitalist-inclined individuals have Reddit.

Cowbee,

Decentralization appeals to leftists, as that’s the principle of the ideology, away from bourgeois interests.

I haven’t seen evidence of state-sponsored propaganda, though there are people that simp far too hard for China and the CPC on Lemmy though.

Cowbee,

Lmao, none of what you just said actually meant anything, beyond you hating humanity and deepthroating Capitalist boot.

Cowbee,

You don’t actually have any points, though. Your whole thing is that “good thing bad because it hurts my feelings,” lmao.

Cowbee,

What would a human who has hopes, dreams, and aspirations do to rock the boat in Communism? Why do you think Communism is based on requiring everyone not have hopes, dreams, and aspirations?

You don’t actually know, your feelings are just hurt and so you lash out.

Cowbee,

It’s a for-profit, Capitalist business that runs it, ergo its Capitalist. The user base is largely liberal, which is still pro-Capitalism. You tend to see more Anarchists and Communists on Lemmy by proportion.

Cowbee,

Yea, so you don’t actually understand Marx, and I’m correct. Glad you could prove me right!

Cowbee,

Noted!

Cowbee,

Did the tents come from famous US communists?

Cowbee,

I think a lot of Marxists take sympathy with Lenin, and Lenin’s vision, they don’t necessarily like what the USSR became under Stalin. The principles of Soviet Democracy, for example, are appealing to many Lefitsts. “All power to the Soviets!”

That being said, ultimately the USSR serves as a great example of why Vanguardism can be good in overthrowing a bad system, but must be held far more accountable, or even dissolve after revolution. I know many MLs would probably shit on me for saying that, citing the CIA paper saying Stalin wasn’t a dictator, but I still think ultimately the form of government under Stalin and those who came after him is very dependent on who is in power. A more decentralized system would have checks against such issues.

My 2 cents as a leftist that isn’t an ML, but has spent time reading about the various leftist tendencies.

I’ll conclude it by saying I would have loved it if Lenin continued to live and stay in power, I wonder what the USSR would have looked like, maybe even today.

Cowbee,

To liberals, unironically yes, lol.

Cowbee,

So same as Capitalism, but without the democracy. Sounds like Communism is better.

Cowbee,

That’s certainly enough to form a hypothesis, but far, far from proof against it. There aren’t any “good” developing countries either.

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