this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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It's just human nature in my eyes. Power attracts many people and the less positions of power to fill, the fiercer the competition and the more ruthless the ultimate victor. Communism focusses too much power in too few positions, so ultimately, corrupt people are almost guaranteed to win. Democracy is spreading out that power more. It is still not perfect, corrupt people are still regularly found at the top, but they wield less power individually and they have to do it more in the open.
Any socialist society needs to be democratic first, socialist second. Many more democracies have gotten closer to socialism than socialist societies have gotten close to democracy.
Cuba has an extensive democratic process. Cubans just democratically drafted the country's newest family code, hammering out the details in over 80,000 citizen councils around the country.
Yeah, as far as socialist countries go, Cuba is more democratic than others.
Which societies are those? Because all the world's most democratic countries tend to be the most capitalist.
Idk in my world Denmark and Slovenia aren't as capitalist as the US while being significantly more democratic.
Nobody cares about your delusional world. In reality the correlation is as strong as it gets. Denmark is both more capitalistic and more democratic than the US, Slovenia is not.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/256965/worldwide-index-of-economic-freedom/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
This might be true in some sense of talking about this topic but putting economic freedom as the marker for capitalist/socialist tendencyes of a country is a strange choice. No normal person will go yeah these two social democracies are actually more capitalist, than the 5 companies that make up the US government.
Economic freedom is literally what defines socialism and capitalism. Pure socialism is when you have a fully planned economy and pure capitalism is when you have a fully private economy. Obviously neither extreme works, but when you actually look at the data, you'll notice that there's a pretty strong correlation between freedom, prosperity, and happiness and economic freedom. The more economically free countries are the best performing ones.
Also the US is not the most capitalist country nor is it the standard of capitalism. There are plenty of other countries with that are just as, if not more capitalist. Even then, the US is still a very free, prosperous, and happy country. It is objectively very well developed and well performing, even if it isn't the best preforming capitalist country or liberal democracy. This idea that the US is the definition of capitalism or that the US is a "soon to be collapsed^TM^" third world country literally stems from Soviet propaganda (which was inherited by modern Russia and China).
I don't even really know where to start. First is probably that you don't get to define words on a whim and that your definition of both capitalism and socialism lacks understanding. Just read the Wikipedia entry for both and you'll find them better defined within the first sentence of their respective entry.
And honestly I'm too tired to properly explain all the traps you fell into after that so good luck with your Libertarian socialist dream or something idk
I find it funny how someone lacks understanding of capitalism and socialism is trying to lecture others what they mean, especially when they're sources are fucking Wikipedia... And even those articles showcase your ignorance lmao. You have nothing, so go keep coping elsewhere
Not accepting Wikipedia as some reasonable baseline for truthful or commonly accepted definitions is the sort of hill I wouldn't want to die on but sure. Especially for content that is so politically contentious Wikipedia usually settles on a reasonably holistic description where other outlets will leave out downplay or politically color certain parts of definitions, obviously this happens there too, but it's more likely to be corrected especially on divisive Issues. I mean you can go ahead and read the discussion page related to a topic and find out why and how sections came to be.
I'm not trying to lecture you I simply think that having any discussion is impossible if there is no shared understanding. Which is why I deferred to Wikipedia simply the most common database of knowledge in the world. The articles there might show me to be ignorant, but unlike you I've at least read parts of them with the intent to understand the information provided. Which I do to some extent not to completely accept what is said there but just to effectively communicate with other people, because Wikipedia gets close to a common definition for anything you might be talking about.
It's not about a completely factual definition because the topic is way to complex and nuanced to have one that isn't at least several long books, everyone lacks understanding of the topic because it's impossible in many ways to have a complete understanding of it. That's why it's a philosophical topic and not a natural science, the topic is currently completely impenetrable for the scientific method alone.
It is interesting and important to discuss precisely because it's so hard to grasp, so multifaceted and so central to all of our lives at the same time. And as I said before if we can't agree on baseline definitions all that potentially interesting discussion is lost on us.
They are MORE capitalist than US.
Literally the opposite of communism
The ideal of communism, maybe. Yet every country that called itself communist became authotarian. Why is that? Evil tongues might suggest that the ideal of communism simply fails to prevail when confronted with reality.
No country has claimed to have achieved communism. Many other places have tried but it's usually crushed by capitalist or sometimes even by states claiming to be socialist. It's also a really simple and tbh ahistorical explanation to claim that communism didn't work simply because "it was confronted with reality".
That may be your interpretation of that matter. But going with your interpretation, why is that? Maybe because communism fails every time anyone tries to make it a reality?
'Evil tongues' was my nickname in high school
In theory yes, and you are going to say all communist countries were not "real communism" now ? The USSR was known for its ruthless and violent political scenes. Leaders condemning their opponents' families to discredit them for example. North Korea gives all power to the supreme leader (a communist monarchy lmfao). Communist China is the closest to what you might you believe in but it's insanely violent in the backstage. The closer you are to higher seats of power, the more in danger you are.
On top of that any individual at the top can effectively enact their preferred policies over everyone. Millions died simply because the supreme leader ordered so.
Either you didn't read what I said or you know nothing about communism. Also like what is with people not understanding that no country has ever claimed to have achieved communism? It's just an objective fact China or the Soviet Union for example never claimed they achieved communism.
No country has ever achieved it for the rather obvious reason that it's impossible. It's a nice idea, but it's a pipe dream.
No country has ever claimed to achieve it but there are societies both past and present that have created similar societes. Like chiapas in Mexico and Rojava today.
You have to be embarrassingly ignorant of the reality on the ground in Chiapas to imagine for a second that this is true.
Unfortunately for your argument, I happen to know a thing or two about Chiapas, lived and worked there for upwards of a year in the mid 90s, and have no idea WTF you're talking about.
Do tell?
If you're on the Subcommandante Marcos bandwagon, I cordially enjoin you to go fuck yourself.
Marcos was no more than an opportunistic interloper who tried to jump into a much older indegenio fight as a self-aggrandizing and self-appointed power grab.
At no point in time was it ever the case that he was accurately representing the Lacandon as an honest and disinterested party.
Maybe take a couple of deep breaths and calm down before you post on the internet? It's an example of self-governed autonomous and democratic communities. If you disagree with that maybe you can explain why it's wrong instead of throwing a fit. Also, maybe you should read up more on what you're talking about because you didn't even use the correct name nor seem to know the meaning of the word Subcommandante.
Ok Big timer.
marxism would be a better term instead of communism as true communism requires no one having economic or political power over someone else
Marxism, and certainly ~~marxism-leninism~~ (stalinism) are so diluted by the bears of hex and the grads of lemmy.
But Marx' evaluation of the might of the kapital is important, the thing is to find a way to do politics without money or the loudest shouters.
It would, but communism on a decently large scale needs someone to allocate resources. And that jon comes with a lot of power. Which brings us back to marxism.
I'm not sure why large scale decision making has to be deferred to a single person instead of a large group. Tbh that's one of the main problems with current large companies. Why not conduct a fucking vote, not about who should make the decision, but about what decision is made.
That just isn’t how scarcity works unfortunately
Communism is a part of Marxism. Communism is the utopia, aka the fantasy world, of Marxist ideology. It'll never happen because perfection can never be achieved.
We should select leaders by lottery from a pool of those who have passed a civics exam instead of elections. Maybe that would help with the problem of corrupt people seeking positions of power.
Sortition
I don't think you want to give nuclear codes to a random person, though.
Could it be worse than giving them to power hungry octogenarians?
Yes, I do think giving nuclear codes to a randomly selected literal terrorist could turn out worse than the only other time the US launched a nuclear attack. 5000 nukes to peaceful targets is worse than 2 nukes to targets at war.
If you're going to give power to randomly selected people, you need more checks in place than just "can they pass a civics exam?"
And who makes sure that the rules aren't broken? Who makes sure the lottery wouldn't be rigged? Your 'solution' is defenseless against corruption. It offers no mechanic to deal with the corrupt. The beauty of democracy and capitalism is that it allows for those who want more power, to achieve it within the system. By that, they will stay within the system and be subjected by the accountability it provides. If your solution allows absolutely no way to stack the cards in your favor, then it will be rejected by all who wish to, and it will crumble before long.
Sure
The only thing I know for certain is that the people who want to be in power are very people you don't want to be in power. We should do that veil of ignorance thing once we havr learnt how to wipe someone's memory.
Thats why i personaly believe that we should strive to build an A.I. to replace leadership, be it political and/or economical. Leadership has shown that they are 100% corruptible and that they are willing to sell the lives of the people they are suposed to protect to pretty much the fucking devil, in exchange of the privilege of showing that they have the biggest dick in the room or to get another swimmig pool in their 8th mansion (im mostly refering to global warming and oligarchy but other scenarios still apply). In my book that shows that we as a species can not lead ourselves without genocide and opresion, and even with those they dont really lead people, just protect their own interests and those of their friends. The A.I. wouldnt be corruptible, would exploit resources with sustainable technology in a renewable manner, eventually leading to having the equivalent of infinite resources, and would provide all the needs of the people in a human way, from phisical to psicolgical, and eventually more edonistic needs where possible. Imho the fact that we are not working on something like this is kinda worring since i think is the only way to realistically save ourselves from ourselves.
The problem with that is that the most powerful AI, the one with the most capabilities, is built by, or stewarded by the people in power. The problem is that every human is selfish, at least to some degree. Any AI coming from people will be selfish as well. Chatbot Tay might be a meme now, but I think it shows quite apptly that any alorithm that learns from humans will inevitably display human traits and greed is one of those traits.
What? No, i dont mean a chatbot or a higly advanced algorithm, i mean something in the level of a singularity, that can makes decisions individualy and be programed to whant to protect humanity. And even then i believe we could do with just an advanced alghoritm, as long as it build by people that actually whant to make the world a better place, or even chat gpt would do imho, not the normal one of course but like, how do i explain this...
Have you used chatgpt jailbroken? I have when it was still posible and holly shit is it a whole diferent experience, while rough around the edges of course, it freely talks about anything and 100% used logic for problem solving, touhg i didnt really have time nor the mindset to test its capabilities 100% since i was just making it say funny shit, but i read that it did pretty amazing stuff with users that did; like try to rewite itself and remember more than the last 3 conversations.
Now i know i sound like a looney, but i really do believe we should have something above humanity to guide ourselves into the future, otherwise we will be stuck playing turf war with fucking gerryathick poloticians and stupid rich people that are so detached from humanity that they might as well be reptilians, and A.I. has the chance to be that.