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“Communism doesn’t work”
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this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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We're all aware of that. The transitionary step of socialism has had many well documented successes, along with setbacks and things to learn from.
The issues with capitalism are also well known. Industrial capitalism does a good job at developing the productive forces, but neoliberal (financial) capitalism serves no purpose other than to funnell money to the very top of the economic elite.
The problem with those transitory step countries is that it has a ruling class with very different class interests and the same money funneling just like in a capitalist state which basically guarantees that they will never be socialist.
You see no difference in a government made to be a mediating entity between private interests where the source of power lies, and a government that's self interested and is where power lies? You see nothing but a flattened "they both did taxes and the leadership class has privileges"?
No, taxes are quite helpful to maintain public infrastructure for example. What I'm saying is that every time one of those transitory governments have popped up the leadership ends up ruling the population with an iron fist and horrible corruption that has benefitted mostly the ruling party and rarely anyone else. Pretty much exactly like a capitalist state but with gulags and no voting.
That is a childlike (and false) understanding of the world. Please educate yourself.
Gulags
Cue laugh track
On the second point you're so wrong it requires no discussion. In the 20th and 21st centuries the countries that had the greatest reduction of poverty in the world are the USSR and the PRC respectively. Whatever definition of 'corruption' you have, the fact that those governments not only benefited their people but benefited them more than any other nation on the planet is not a debatable point.
So what exactly do you mean "iron fist"? Are you from the US? Because if you're saying it from the perspective of the most intrusive surveillance state in history and the largest police state in history, I feel like we're going to have to sort our semantics.
I'm from one of the countries the USSR did their imperialism on so I'm definitely going to take issue with your assertion that they benefitted their people more than any other country. They benefitted the people in Russia by draining resources from satellite states. By iron fist I mean the people who spoke out against their regime were either executed outright, worked to death or near death. And by corruption I mean any wealth went straight into the pockets of party leaders and members.
Also why does everyone who defend the USSR go into US bad dialogue tree instantly? Like I really don't give shit about the US and I'm sure it's bad too, but that completely irrelevant. At least the US doesn't generally outright annex countries to do imperialism.
Fucking clown.
And BIG IF you actually are from a former soviet satellite you're either over 80 years old or you don't know shit better than anyone else based on "I live here"
Yeah and I hear shit from people who live in South Carolina about the Civil War all the time.
Wow, you spent most of your post complaining I ignored a question I didn't ignore while ignoring half my points. Impressive. If you missed my answer to "what about US" it was that I don't care, both are bad.
Also you need to be 40 to remember life under Soviet rule. And my grandparents are well over 80 and they do remember the mass deportations personally.
Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Mexico. Also the US has over 800 military bases around the world.
Like, the "iron fist" rule as you call it can be debated till the end of time, both the degree to which the characterization is true versus western propaganda/idealism as well as the degree to which it might be necessary to survive the omnipresent fascist and capitalist counterevolutionary movements, both external and internal.
Buuuuuut literacy rates, cost of living, infant mortality, income equality, life expectancy, gender equality, etc, these all tended to drastically improve in socialist states, compared to pre-socialism (and especially post-socialism when looking at the many states that were violently overthrown and liberalized).