For context: The thread was about why people hate Hexbear and Lemmygrad instances
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One for communists is hardly any different [to one for nazis] as far as I’m concerned.
What do you expect to happen when you call a group of people “hardly any different [to nazis]”?
Communism does not advocate genocide any more than capitalism does. A capitalist society may commit genocide, a communist society may commit genocide. Neither are required to by their economic systems.
National socialism directly advocates for genocide.
It’s a ridiculous statement to compare communists to nazis and it’s not surprising that insulting communists like that will get you banned.
(Adding islamism to the comparison just makes the statement even more bizarre.)
Yeah, it’s not a fair comparison. You can say it’s a dumb ideology but at the end of the day it’s close cousins with big-L Liberalism, and often has been first to the social ideas we hold dear today.
They got banned because lemmy.ml is also a communist-run instance. The mods could have taken the high road and just replied, I guess, but that would have been extraordinary patience. So, they banned the person calling them a Nazi, and I don’t think that was an unreasonable choice on their part.
Here on lemmy there is an active campaign to stir up fervor against communism. It’s an age old right wing tatic.
It’s not working well, if so. Lemmy’s still pretty left-wing relative to the overall population, and my comments defending communism as not evil are upvoted.
Yet, still they carry on.
Communism actively advocates genocide, it’s in a fucking Marx’s manifesto!
Where?
In a fucking manifesto. You blind or what?
It doesn’t, I’ve read it.
Read again.
Still no genocide.
Well, I guess you need to learn English language better.
Jokes like that only work when they’re written by a different person, so that it’s obvious that they’re jokes
Obvious troll is obvious
Don’t troll then.
Communism does not advocate genocide any more than capitalism does.
So “eat the rich” is just edgy humor or what?
Weird, because somehow, every time that every time communism has been tried, it involved massive genocide, though perhaps one could argue that the majority of it was the result of incompetency, because the majority of the victims starved to death as a result of disastrous agricultural policies.
The Holodomor in the Ukraine killed about 3.5-5 million people. The Great Leap Forward killed somewhere between 15-55 million. The Khmer Rouge killed about a million. And I’m not trying to make excuses for National Socialism here, but you have to admit that even when taking to low estimates, communism’s death toll is far higher than that of the Nazis. OP is correct, they’re all evil ideologies.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
Every time capitalism has been tried, it also involved massive genocide.
Funny, but it turns out that every economic system invented by humans has massive genocide in its history.
Wild, its almost like the genocide was a power grab tactic, and not something inherent to these economic systems.
Okay, but that’s excusing one genocide with another genocide.
The difference is that capitalism doesn’t require genocide in order to establish itself, even if it sometimes occurs in the pursuit of it. Or are you saying that when people first figured out to, say, use sea shells as a method of accounting and facilitating trade, it involved killing a bunch of people before anyone was convinced that it was preferable to trading goods against each other?
Capitalism (or free trade, rather) can evolve naturally and spontaneously among a group of individuals who seek to maximize everyone’s utility. When the currency had collapsed after WW2, people traded with cigarettes instead of money, even if they were non-smokers, because it was practical and convenient, no one forced them to. And yes, there was genocide before that, but it didn’t happen in order to get people to start trading in cigarettes.
Again, I’m not saying that capitalism is by definition non-violent, or that violence in pursuit of capitalism is more acceptable than it is in the pursuit of communism. Absolutely not. All I’m saying is that it can be non-violent, whereas communism always seems to make violence a prerequisite in order to get everyone on the same page.
Also, I think it would help any further discussion if we could make a distinction between capitalism and free trade, as the two are often conflated. There certainly is a case to be made about usury being bad, because it helps to increase and accelerate the divide between rich and poor, and always leads to wealth and power being concentrated in the hands of a few. The word “capitalism” kind of implies that it’s the capital doing the work, i.e. usury is part and parcel of the system, and then people tend to focus only on the predations of banks and neglect the advantages of free trade over forced association and planned economies as it is common under communism.
But there’s a reason the founding father of the US were so vehemently against the creation of a central bank. And it seems that they’re proven right by the fact that ever since our government decided to create one anyways, the gap between rich and poor has risen much faster than it used to. So maybe, just maybe, “capitalism” isn’t the root of our problems, but state-sponsored usury is, because when the government is in control of the money supply, they can always simply choose to arbitrarily inflate everyone’s wealth away, which always tends to hit the poor much harder than the rich, because they don’t have easy access to inflation-proof investments.
Ill be honest, Im not reading a wall of text from someone who reads “genocide happens under every economic system, meaning its not the economic systems causing genocide” and hears “genocide is ok because other people do it”
You clearly cant follow the convo, this isnt worth reading
Okay, that was always allowed.
every time communism has been tried, it involved massive genocide
This argument is so frustrating, because it totally ignores the fact that the common thread, both for communist countries and capitalist countries, and both for intentional genocide and crises through incompetence, is the consolidation of power in a small set of individuals or group that prioritises their own self interest over the common good.
The big issue with “trying” communism is that it historically has only really occurred through violent revolution. The political instability in these situations gives a perfect opportunity for the seizing of power by exactly those kinds of people.
Never mind the fact that genocide is absolutely not limited to communist countries, and that genocide goes against the actual fundamental principles of a communist system, which is centred on equality.
Yes, the USSR committed genocide - so did Britain and America, and so are modern capitalist Russia and China right now.
There’s loads of good reasons both for and against every economic system, communism included. But “communism=genocide lalalala” is just a cheap excuse to totally avoid considering the merits of a different economic system. Doing that denies yourself the opportunity to genuinely consider how a different economic approach, whether that’s communism or just using concepts from the ideology, could improve the lives of citizens in a healthy democracy.
The big issue with “trying” communism is that it historically has only really occurred through violent revolution. The political instability in these situations gives a perfect opportunity for the seizing of power by exactly those kinds of people.
Gradualist Socialism was the political project for Social Democrats in post-war Europe. They had 30-odd years to achieve it in several countries. The issue becomes that once they started notching up victories, radicalism decreased, and that when they’re not starving and oppressed people categorically will not vote to let someone collectivize their farms and expropriate their homes. It seems clear to me that in real-world conditions, a Socialist state can only come about through revolution, because the path in a democracy is far too long and leaves far too many angles of attack from a liberal opposition.
I think it’s also worth considering the impact of different voting systems on this as well, which is hard to do in an experimental way.
The effect of, for example, first past the post’s 2 party system is hard to know for sure, but almost certainly has a substantial impact on how political views transition over the long term.
The effect of the 2 party system on how people understand politics and society is incredibly interesting
That maybe implies that the happy spot is somewhere in the middle.
Maybe? We’re currently trying to implement a different economic transition, from pollution to green. I don’t think popular resistance to those changes imply that we should try for a happy medium instead. Similarly, the difficulty in achieving Socialism democratically doesn’t necessarily imply anything about how desirable the end state would be.
The big issue with “trying” communism is that it historically has only really occurred through violent revolution. The political instability in these situations gives a perfect opportunity for the seizing of power by exactly those kinds of people.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that violent revolution is exactly what Marx said was essential in order to bring about the communist utopia he envisioned. That’s precisely why communism has such a bad rep among anyone but edgy teenagers and college students. Are you telling me Marx was wrong about this? If so, please elaborate.
Okay - I shall do so.
You are wrong.
If you’re going to base your disdain for the entire concept on a single work by a single author, then it would help if you actually read the work itself, rather than deciding what it says based on, I can only assume, something someone you know said offhand that one time.
So as a starting point, here’s the whole work. Why not do a quick search through for the word “violence” and see if he ever advocates for it (spoiler: he does not). https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/postgraduate/masters/modules/theoryfromthemargins/manifest.pdf
However, in his conclusion, he does say this of communists:
They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions
This is an interesting passage to interpret - the use of the word force in this passage is fairly vague, for example, overthrowing the status quo via legislation enforced by police would be considered “by force”, regardless of whether the police use violence. This is because it is done not by allowing what Marx calls the bourgeoisie to decide to switch to communism, but by enforcing it through law.
Now, there’s more to unpack here, so I’ll break it into a couple of sections…
Revolution
Marx does use the word “revolution” a lot in his manifesto, however typically not in the meaning you’re envisioning (ie an overthrowing of government) but instead the meaning a fundamental shift in distribution of power and wealth within a society.
Is violence ever acceptable?
As a thought experiment, imagine a country ruled by a purely evil autocrat. This theoretical autocrat abuses their power, harms innocent people on a whim and takes whatever they please from their citizens. There is no allowance for dissent, no democracy for the people to represent their interests.
Would it be acceptable for the people of this nation to use violence to remove this dictator from power? I think most people would probably say yes in this context.
So we have determined that in some scenarios, violence may be acceptable when it is the only possible way to overturn an oppressive system of government.
That’s not to say that it’s the only way any system can be changed, or that violence is acceptable when it can be avoided.
The consequences of violent revolution
While violent revolution will change the distribution of power, it also provides an chance for opportunists to abuse this power vacuum to consolidate it around themselves, under the guise of being part of that movement.
Good examples of this are, of course, Stalin in the USSR, and, as a non-communist example, Putin consolidating power in Russia during the USSR’s collapse and its transition to oligarchic capitalism.
The geopolitics of 1840s Europe
Europe in the 1840s was not like it is today, especially in a political sense. The continent was made up almost entirely of absolutist monarchies, with no democratic systems to allow the voices of the citizens to be heard.
There was a wave of failed revolutions against the feudal systems under these monarchies across the continent, which, with few exceptions, were brutally crushed by the states with almost no change.
Understanding these circumstances, it is easier to understand why the idea of transitioning to an equal distribution of both political, and in communism’s case, economic power through peaceful means would be considered not just difficult, but laughably impossible.
Many of the seeds of the modern democracies we enjoy today were planted during this period of turmoil, in part in response to Marx’s manifesto.
Communism and revolution under modern democracy
Now we have the privilege of living under modern democracies across much of the world, we have an unprecedented opportunity to actually consider Marx’s ideas for a different societal structure, and implement changes that would be for the benefit for all citizens through democratic systems.
But we need to actually have reasonable discussions about these ideas and their impact, and “communism=genocide” is not only wrong, but takes a hostile stance against the concept before even understanding what the ideas are.
Edit: wrong link
Straight from the manifesto, page 12:
In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.
Accuse me of picking and choosing the most salient passage, but I would say this doesn’t leave too much room for interpretation about what the word “forcible” means. And no, you don’t get to talk your way out by saying ‘overthrowing the status quo via legislation enforced by police would be considered “by force”, regardless of whether the police use violence.’ Isn’t ACAB a quintessentially leftist term? Or does it not apply when the police work for you instead of against you?
Also, just to give a counterexample to your “evil autocrat” problem: Gandhi managed to get rid of British colonial rule without ever advocating for or using violence. So no, the idea that violent oppression justifies a violent response is flawed. Violence always begets more violence, there is literally no exception. You can’t murder your way to a fair and just society, it always ends in oppression.
That quote isn’t saying “we should go start some violence for a bit of fun”.
It’s talking about the exact revolutions that were ongoing during that period (see the section on 1840s geopolitics), and noting that the ongoing revolutions give an opportunity for citizen centred political system - ie a democracy.
ACAB isn’t some international stance the left takes. It’s a reaction to the frequently racist, violent and corrupt policing specifically in the USA. And it certainly doesn’t mean there should be no law enforcement whatsoever - you’d be extremely hard pressed to find anybody who would take that stance.
Violence always begets more violence, there is literally no exception
Counterexamples: the British suffragette movement (which was notably extraordinarily violent, despite its common modern image as a quiet, polite disagreement), the American civil war, the Swedish coup of 1809, the Ukrainian defensive resistance in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war.
Gandhi was a fantastic and principled man, and had an enormous impact. But, whether or not he liked it, violence was absolutely a part of the end of British colonial rule, and would have been even if every revolutionary was exclusively nonviolent, because the violence by the British was not conditional on violence by the Indians.
But all of this is separate to the key point - regardless of whether one considers it an effective method of revolution, violence isn’t the aim of a communist system, and it’s use is only considered acceptable in a scenario where that is not the current system, and when it would be the only possible method to overthrow that system.
Edit: as an aside, even Gandhi accepted that violence can be necessary:
Even though Gandhi considered non-violence to be “infinitely superior to violence”, he preferred violence to cowardice. He added that he “would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor”
ACAB isn’t some international stance the left takes. It’s a reaction to the frequently racist, violent and corrupt policing specifically in the USA. And it certainly doesn’t mean there should be no law enforcement whatsoever - you’d be extremely hard pressed to find anybody who would take that stance.
Right. As usual, when you press people on it, they’ll end up admitting that none of their principles are really absolute and they’re always willing to make an exception as long as it’s in their own favor.
Counterexamples: the British suffragette movement (which was notably extraordinarily violent, despite its common modern image as a quiet, polite disagreement), the American civil war, the Swedish coup of 1809, the Ukrainian defensive resistance in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war.
Not super familiar with examples 1 and 3, but would you say that violence against women remains an ongoing problem in the UK? Has there really been no political violence in Sweden since 1809? I don’t think I even need to point out that America remains an extraordinarily violent society according to leftists (and even many people on the right) or that there literally still IS war in the Ukraine to this day.
“Violence begets more violence” doesn’t mean that violence will always continue to escalate (if it did, we’d clearly all be dead already), it means that violence never ends violence. At best, all of its victories will be temporary. All you ever get is a momentary truce once everyone is tired of fighting, but as soon as they recuperate, violence is back on the menu.
And just to be clear, I never claimed that violence was the goal of communism, just that communists seem to universally agree that violence is acceptable in order to reach their goals.
As far as the Ghandi quote goes, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time thinking about what he could have meant by this, and the best explanation I can come up with is that he may have sought to differentiate between non-violent action and non-action (which is nonviolent by definition). In other words, if you are being demonstrably mistreated, it’s better to stand up and do something about it (even if violent), but it’s better yet (even infinitely superior) to do something that doesn’t involve violence (like protesting peacefully). Violent resistance in the face of injustice takes some courage, but non-violent resistance takes far more courage yet.
No, Marx advocated for action to bring about a socialist state. Marx advocated for a variety of solutions, including violence when necessary, but also general strikes, reform, and negotiation. Marx wasn’t particularly married to any single way of overthrowing previous capitalist societies - he simply knew he wouldn’t be a easy journey.
So “eat the rich” is just edgy humor or what?
Yes. Most people don’t want to eat other people. I would expect the explicit cannibalism to clue you in to a level of irony there.
Weird, because somehow, every time that every time communism has been tried, it involved massive genocide, though perhaps one could argue that the majority of it was the result of incompetency, because the majority of the victims starved to death as a result of disastrous agricultural policies.
Genocide has to be at least a bit deliberate, and generally they just fucked up their economy bad enough agriculture was negatively effected. In the USSR’s case at least, the starvation affected the republics pretty equally, too. As Ukrainians were starving so were Khazaks. For political reasons, some parties have tried to make it sound like a targeted ethnic thing, but it just wasn’t, and it certainly wasn’t on purpose.
but you have to admit that even when taking to low estimates, communism’s death toll is far higher than that of the Nazis. OP is correct, they’re all evil ideologies.
This is the part where the communists come out with capitalism’s death toll. Dumb ideology, maybe, evil ideology no, at least not on it’s own.
Edit: Also, I take issue with not counting all of WWII as part of the Nazi death count, since they very deliberately made it happen. Consider this was in the space of just a few years, vs. an entire human lifetime for the Soviets.
No, you can’t count all of WWII as Nazi death count, that would be quite unprofessional. Count the WWII deaths caused by Axis powers if you want.
For a war historian, maybe. From an ethical culpability perspective I think it’s fair. Hitler started that thing and dragged everyone else along kicking and screaming.
Maybe WWII would have happened “spontaneously” the same way WWI did eventually, but Europe was still getting over the first one, and so it was a couple decades away at least.
Well I’m glad we can at least agree that genocide isn’t ideal and generally a suboptimal way to solve any problems.
Rich people are not a race. So “genocide” doesn’t really make sense there. “Eat the rich” does not mean “kill the rich”, necessarily, either. A lot of people just use it as a metaphor for ending the massive wealth inequality through economic reform.
Maybe I’m missing something. How is wealth related to death? We all die when we get old.
I’m my town even the homeless are fed and clothed. This is a strong contrast to people starving to death because the food can’t get to the table
Yes, I understand that, and I already answered that argument here:
Are you saying that because they went by income instead of by race, it technically wasn’t genocide, just mass murder? I’m not sure that makes it any better. Also, don’t forget that a lot of the poor people died as well, so it didn’t even help those it was supposed to benefit.
I don’t think any sane person really wants to just kill all of the rich people. It’s more about wanting their wealth to be redistributed fairly. I don’t think that most of these kind of revolutions start with violent ambitions. They start with demanding the wealthy to give up their excess wealth. The problem is that some people will defend their money to the death, and respond with violence when their wealth is threatened. So they do tend to turn messy pretty quick just thanks to greed, mostly. Some people would literally rather die than have to live like everyone else.
Anybody who thinks that every rich person should be murdered is definitely unhinged and on the extremist side. I think those kinds of people are few and far between for the most part.
Right. I believe that idea is called socialism, not communism. Unlike communism, which demands a complete overthrow and reform of the system in order to be established, socialists are generally happy to bring about reform within the system by just passing laws requiring various amounts of wealth redistribution.
I’m certainly not against it as long as it doesn’t remove too many incentives for people to be able to improve their standard of living by working harder. Having a reasonable social safety system that ensures nobody has to live on the streets unless they absolutely want to certainly seems desirable. And yes the US could probably improve in that area.
That is not the distinction between Socialism and Communism. Communism can be achieved via reform (theoretically), and Socialism can be achieved revolutionarily.
Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production.
Communism is a post-Socialist “Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society” achieved via abolition of Private Property.
Communism does not remove incentives for people to be able to improve their standard of living by working harder, this is just a false statement due to a lack of understanding.
Hope that clears things up!
Wait til you find out how many people were killed by capitalist governments
Okay, please send some links where I can read about this. I’ll wait.
Obvious troll is obvious. Eve your name is just a sad right wing le epic troll.
Go outside and get a life dude.
Whataboutism is not an argument. If communism is so great then it has to be able to stand on it’s own. If it’s good only when compared to something worse then it’s actually not good.
It’s perfectly fine to use “whataboutism” to counter tired talking points that do nothing to advance actual discourse. Like yea, people died in capitalist countries too, how is that in any way advancing a discussion about these differing economic systems. Go a step further, ask why these things happened in communist countries. Think about how they differ from similar situations in a capitalist country. Engage with the ideas and then we can have honest discourse.
I’m pretty sure “eat the rich” is not comparable to “kill 5 million Ukrainians.”
And I’m also pretty sure ‘rich person’ is neither an ethnicity nor a nationality.
I’m pretty sure “eat the rich” is not comparable to “kill 5 million Ukrainians.”
Well, that’s the thing, that’s actually almost exactly what happend. The Soviets basically labeled all the (relatively) wealthy farmers as class enemies and started deporting them en masse in order to seize their lands and turn them over to collectivized farming. The problem was that along with those farmers, they also got rid of the knowledge they had about how to work the land effectively, and as a result, the following harvests were increasingly poor, which is what caused the mass starvation.
The same thing happened during the Great Leap Forward in China.
And I’m also pretty sure ‘rich person’ is neither an ethnicity nor a nationality.
Are you saying that because they went by income instead of by race, it technically wasn’t genocide, just mass murder? I’m not sure that makes it any better. Also, don’t forget that a lot of the poor people died as well, so it didn’t even help those it was supposed to benefit.
Do you really think when people say “eat the rich” they mean “eat farmers?”
This is a ludicrous comparison. The top 1% of the world’s population causes the vast majority of problems. That is what people are talking about when they say “eat the rich.” Not millionaires, not even multimillionaires. Billionaires. People whose entire wealth was built on the exploitation of others.
Getting rid of them will definitely not “get rid of the knowledge” because the only knowledge they have is how to buy the right financial advisors.
Do you really think if Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Elon Musk all died today that the world would be worse off?
Do you really think when people say “eat the rich” they mean “eat farmers?”
No, I brought that up because that’s what historically happened. And in light of that, continuing to use a phrase like that at least seems to be somewhat poor in taste. But that’s besides the point.
Do you really think if Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Elon Musk all died today that the world would be worse off?
I honestly don’t know, but what makes you think the world would be better off if they were dead? Unless they had pledged all their money to charity (which I believe Gates has actually done), what would their deaths really change for you and I?
Getting rid of them will definitely not “get rid of the knowledge” because the only knowledge they have is how to buy the right financial advisors.
That might be true for people who inherited all of their wealth, but if that’s what you’re trying to say, you picked some piss poor examples, because all three of them weren’t born anywhere near as wealthy as they are now and took some considerable risks in order to get there, and they all created literally tens, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process, most of them rather well paid (though we can certainly argue about Amazon).
Just to be perfectly clear, I’m by no means saying that things are okay the way they are, and that all we have to do is let rich people continue to do whatever they want. All I’m saying is that things aren’t as simple as we want them to be and the easy solution is rarely the correct one.
what makes you think the world would be better off if they were dead?
They provide no value and pay almost no taxes. Without them hoarding their money, it would get circulated.
All billionaires are money hoarders. They have more money than they can possibly spend in a single lifetime. And if you think their charities are truly benevolent, you should look into them a little deeper.
Please, though, name a multibillionaire who is essential. Who the world will not be as good if they won’t be around. Just one. One billionaire that provides value to more than shareholders.
This isn’t about whether or not billionaires are essential, but whether getting rid of them would substantially change anything.
Assume, for instance, that we make owning (or earning) more than a billion dollars (per year) illegal by putting a 100% tax on every dollar afterwards. Then billionaires would simply move most of their assets abroad or find some other loophole that lets them avoid this, like setting up a bunch of smaller companies that each have $999 million. Unless the whole world follows suit, it won’t change anything, and that’s not going to happen because any country that’s willing to give them a safe haven would make a killing by doing so.
Also, if this DID happen, what makes you think they’d continue to work trying to make more money and not just spend more time playing golf instead? Whatever revenue you’d expect in taxes would simply not occur because once there’s no more incentive to earn more, there’s no more incentive to produce. Ironically, it would probably lead to far more quasi-billionaires because other multi-millionaires would likely pick up the slack where the big guys throw the towel, but I don’t see how regular people would benefit.
But perhaps you can explain what you have in mind?
Rich is a social construct. Just like Ukrainian. There’s no difference.
I report every “guillotine” comment I ever see but don’t care enough to look at the modlog to see if any action was taken
And which rule do you reckon I broke?
I don’t understand the question.
It means I read the rules for this forum and I don’t see how I broke any of them in any way that would be significant enough to warrant a mod to take action.
I was respectful and didn’t use any harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic like race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion. Unless you want to argue that communism is a religion, which would be quite funny given its stance on religion as a whole.
None of what I said was illegal, nor was it spam, porn, NSFW, or not matching the theme of the community (genocide is, after all, at least mildly infuriating). I also didn’t encourage harassment, I just stated some facts and provided proof, and I had a good faith discussion with everyone who responded without resulting to name calling or insults, or following people around the site or anything like that.
If a mod wants to disagree with any of that, that’s their prerogative I guess, but it would only prove that communists have a very thin skin and are allergic to any amount of criticism, no matter how factual. Genocide is bad, doesn’t matter what color of coat it’s wearing or what flag it’s waving.
Allow me to rephrase: why are we having this conversation?
You posted about language you find unacceptable and I shared that I report guillotine comments because they are violent threats. However I never follow up and see if any action was taken because I just don’t care that much.
What does this have to do with you, or your ban?
Oh, okay, I think I see what you meant now, excuse me for misinterpreting that.
No, I have never reported anyone for saying “eat the rich” or anything like that, nor would I, because I don’t see it as a credible or immediate thread. I understand that it’s usually just meant as a metaphor; it’s people blowing off steam or venting their frustration, not a suggestion to resort to immediate cannibalism.
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever reported anyone on social media, unless it was spam or advocating for child rape. I might report doxxing if I ever came across it but it hasn’t happened so far. Does that answer your question?
They’re all fringe extremists groups.
Not everything outside the Overton Window is equally bad
No one has claimed they’re equally bad
gets down voted
Communism died and hopeful it stays dead
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Its kind of sad that the social media alternatives are all extreme. I was on odysse for a bit but I left because it was filling up with literal nazis
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Good thing is that communists are such a tiny portion of the populace that as this site grows at all, they’ll swiftly be drowned out. They’ll either flee to new obscure social media, cluster in their own federation, or accept that they’re minorities anywhere that’s popular.
Most people are normal people.
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Then you need to review your understanding of common english words, because thats what the comment you made says.
The comment might be controversial, but it shouldn’t be a bannable offense.
It sure is a Blockable one though.
Sure, the weak of heart need solace in these dark times, where anyone might have a different opinion than their own.
But, seriously, you’re right that ‘crap I don’t want to hear’ should totally be handled by individuals making that choice, rather than mods banning people.
I’m a huge advocate for blocking people on social media. When there’s someone you don’t feel like dealing with, don’t.
What I take issue with is when it’s not a personal decision and rather a mod/admin decides that nobody should hear what this guy has to say.
Honestly we should ban communism on non communism communities. However I’ll settle for just ignoring them.
Banning someone for not having radical beliefs is just silly. We should boycott lemmy.ml as they are effectively a propaganda machine. (Try to switch to small instances)
I don’t personally think it should be banned. I find it fascinating to be able to encounter people with wildly differing ideas to mine. I switched instances aswell because the previous one didn’t federate with lemmygrad and hexbear.
What political views shouldn’t be banned?
Views compatible with liberal democracy
What part of Communism is incompatible with Liberal Democracy?
Why is Liberal Democracy the only acceptable form of Democracy?
I think its the option of most of the world
So many people here trying to argue dictionary definitions and hide behind technicalities to make their little slice of authoritarianism better than that other slice of authoritarianism.
edit
Good lord, look at the replies to this post. Even being called out on the behavior, they still cant resist slapfighting over silly technicalities and dictionary definitions.
Communism isn’t inherently authoritarian, it holds no relation to authoritarianism or democracy, just like capitalism, and can exist within any political formation. Conflating communism with authoritarianism and capitalism with democracy will likely result in completely justified dictionary arguments, as this misconception is actually very important ideologically.
Associating communism with things like USSR or, in an even more cursed way, China and claiming communism is authoritarian is actively harmful, especially considering that neither of them ever had communism to begin with - they had socialism and claimed to be directed towards communism some time in the future.
Such shortcuts, like communism=authoritarianism=evil prevent you from actually familiarizing yourself with the concepts and puts you in a position when you oppose a strawman.
In order to collectively own everything, you must have a mechanism to decide the use of the means of production. Some things can be produced, but should not be, and leaving it up to local decision making will produce imbalances, as things that are easier or more fun to produce are produced more often than required.
You need a central nexus of control, and a person or group of people to be the final arbiter of decisions. Every time it’s been done in history, either the leaders of the revolution, or the people violent and powerful enough to stab them in the back and take control have landed in this position. Mysteriously, a small group of people controlling all production has only ever lead to tyranny.
Any communism that begins in revolution will devolve into tyranny, and there’s no words a dictionary can string together that will change that. Voluntary communes also seem to have problems, but it’s more often splintering, which is significantly less harmful.
In order to own anything at all, you need a mechanism to protect that property with violence. When you have to protect your own property with violence through hired guards, it’s feudalism. A necessary quality of capitalism is that the government protects your property with violence. Capitalism cannot exist without governments that defend property with violence or the threat of it.
All modern states are the final arbiters of decisions, just like the USSR and similar governments. If business contracts are signed in America, it’s the governments that force people to follow them. If you have a property dispute, the government decides who wins through laws. The government ensures that individual rights are protected through violence, from basic rights like the right to life, to the right to have private property. Laws are backed up by violence, as laws only matter when enforced.
The issue with attempts to establish communism in the past is that their democratic mechanism either failed, or never existed to begin with. When democratic workers councils disagreed with what Stalin wanted, he just ignored them. What could they do about it? When member states of the Soviet Union got upset with federal decisions, tanks were sent in to silence any dissent. These states enforced systems that centralized power and allowed small groups, or even a single person to make unilateral decisions and never have their power challenged.
Stalin made some erroneous philosophical assumptions, and thought it meant he could violate sovereignty. Boy, was he wrong.
Capitalism works more on capitulation, which gives it a but more staying power. Only a bit, though, because capitulation only goes so far.
What we need is a system that people buy into and sustain of their own free will - not from having been coerced or convinced, but because they value it.
The problems start before Stalin. I also don’t know what you mean by capitulation or how the USSR worked less by it than capitalism.
As far as a system that everyone buys into out of their own free will, it’s probably not possible. Even in a system that perfectly ensures equality for all people, a couple of assholes will not like the system because they want to dominate others. Even anarchy would require a mechanism to uphold anarchy through violence. The best we can do is to create a system where everyone is equal and it is most prudent to uphold it from a rational point of view.
Indeed, Stalin’s not the only failed communist/socialist, but at least he had some valid philosophy backing him (right until he glazed over individual rights).
It was somewhat of a tongue-in-cheek usage of the word ‘capitulation’. But I meant it as roughly somewhere between coercion and choice, and leaning more towards choice than coercion does.
Equality for all won’t work, structually or socially, except in some narrow (but critical) bands of focus. And anarchy has precisely the flaws you specify.
While ‘perfect’ equality and anarchy can’t effectively exist, a society could be based around concepts of sovereignty. Not abandoning capitalism, but acknowledging the energy flow cash represents, and the need to use it both ethically and effectively. Not abandoning communal collectivity, but acknowledging that respect for sovereignty is the cornerstone to a solid collective.
The issues in any society are distributed throughout its members, and manifest in the psychological and emotional landscape of its people. The sad thing about this is that, as a societal structure hits it’s limits, you see people exercising the principles of that society as fully as they can, and it still doesn’t cut it. For capitalism, that’s working endlessly, getting guilty for not working more/effectively enough, or getting all the things you were supposed to want and entering a general malaise because they’re all meaningless.
But the thing is, top to bottom, people caught in the capitalist mindset are all looking for a good deal - and a ‘good deal’ is defined as one asymmetrically in my benefit. But there’s no intuitive and natural, sustainable enjoyment of the results. It’s like gambling once the urge has taken over someone, and they don’t even pay attention to win or loss. Oh, sure, they like winning and don’t like losing, but they’re never going to take their winnings and go home, our really make back what they’ve lost. They’re just going to continue.
Anyways - that same distributed nature is what the concept of sovereignty depends on. Capitalism is not something that needs to be fought - it works well with equitable exchange and prudent action. But the mentality that it trends towards must be fought. The urges to follow the advertisement, to take the simplistic way out, and to choose the cheaper (in all senses of the word) option. To trick others into getting the worse end of the deal, or to just be ‘good hearted’ and look the other way while you get screwed.
With sovereignty, first and foremost, the issues in the world that you care to change are your own to change. They may not be your fault, but they are your situation and cultural background. They are the hand you are dealt. They are your responsibility. And the first place to change them is within yourself - to recognize how you are connected to those things, and how and why what you do results in or feeds those things - and to make change in your own life, first and foremost, before you make claims on what others should do. Enforcement action against others is limited to circumstances where sovereignty has been (or is being) violated.
Until this mentality is prevalent enough to represent fundamental cultural change, it is irrelevant what government is chosen, other than to pragmatically choose what is already in place (or whatever works). Once this mentality is prevalent enough to represent fundamental cultural change, it is irrelevant what government is chosen, because the way out it is used will be effective enough and just enough - and it will be worked towards the ends of sovereignty, both individual and collective.
Having a mentality of sovereignty won’t change much, if only because it doesn’t fix many of the inherent problems with a global human society. A big downside to capitalism and free markets are mortal limitations. We can’t predict the future or understand the full effects of our actions. We estimate based what information we have, but we can often be wrong even if we have good intentions. The externalities of our actions are basically impossible to calculate, and even when we discover them, we possess the ability to suspend our empathy and ignore potential harms.
I’m also not a fan of the assumption that we can’t tell others what to do until we put our own lives in order. Sometimes getting others to do things is essential to changing your own life and improving your own situation. On a personal level, you can set boundaries with toxic people in your life or convince others to leave you alone. On a large scale, you can overthrow an oppressive system or change laws that prevent you from living well. Telling others what they should do is not mutually exclusive to making changes in your own life.
Sovereignty is great and all, but even if widely respected by most, some will not, and those that do must step in to protect it. The way I view it, laws don’t exist for ethically behaving people, they exist because there will always be unethical people, and there’s no way to ensure that any ethical person will always be ethical.
The fundamental reality is that someone who wants to do good can participate in an evil system. Unregulated global capitalism uses child slaves and keeps people in poverty, all while pumping substances into the environment that harm everyone. You might respect the sovereignty of everyone you meet, but anything you buy can be made by manufacturers who don’t respect the sovereignty of people you’ll never meet.
Capitalism is too big for its problems to be solved by individual behaviors without changing our current system. We must change it to actually make a system that respect everyone’s anything, be it sovereignty, human rights, or the ability to live.
The problem is that the orthodox MLs you find on lemmy do un ironically defend autocracy in the USSR and China, dismissing criticism of these states as western propaganda.
Trust me, id love a leftist space on the internet which doesn’t make folk heroes out of tyrants. Lemmy is not that place.
There are many on Lemmy who do associate Communism with the USSR and China and also think it is a good thing.
True, but that’s another story. Being communist doesn’t mean being a tankie. Some communists are, some aren’t, and as such conflating the two is wrong.
Context matters in this discussion.
The moderators of the lemmy instance OP got banned from have Russian and Chinese iconography in their profiles - its explicitly authoritarian and arguably communist in name only in order to attract naive idealists who otherwise would be against authoritarianism.
Yes, exactly like that is what i was talking about.
Communism IS 100% authoritarian. Any ideology which puts social constructs above individual rights and freedoms is authoritarian, be it monarchy, fascism or communism.
Sorry, but the protection of rights requires that governments limit freedom. All societies and nations on earth do this. If given absolute freedom, some would kill and brutalize to gain power, forcing everyone who wants to avoid this to band together and enforce rules that prevent that behavior. This is the biggest reason to rationally want a government. Even if you believe rights aren’t social constructs themselves, everyone knows they must be fought for.
Some tankies use the fact that governments inherently limit freedom to claim all governments are authoritarian, and therefore states like the PRC and the USSR are no better than liberal democracies. Your definition of authoritarianism supports the bullshit arguments tankies make.
Authoritarianism is a sliding scale, and not every limit on freedom is equivalent in contributing to a country being more authoritarian. Not having the freedom to kill others without consequence doesn’t make a country very authoritarian. Not having the freedom to publicly disagree with the government is a large factor in a state being authoritarian.
Communism and socialism do not necessitate having no freedom of speech or bodily autonomy. Communism, as defined by Marx, was the final stage socialism and anarchistic in nature.
The idea that communism is always authoritarian uses the idea of communism popularized by Marxist-Leninist movements, where dissent is highly controlled and limited. In reality, these regimes were socialist at best, calling themselves communists to claim that only their version of socialism would deliver Marx’s communism. Even to the authoritarian communists themselves, their states never achieved communism at any point.
You’re deluded. A proper liberal and democratic government doesn’t limit individual rights and freedoms, it only ensures that one’s rights end where rights of others start, resulting in an equilibrium for everyone.
Communism is authoritarian as it destroys individual rights and freedoms. If the ideology is not liberal in nature, it’s authoritarian. There’s no way around it.
Anarchists are the antithesis to authoritarians, not liberals, which doesn’t even mean they’re right. Besides, liberal democracy can support and enforce non government entities that take rights away from others. Even if you ignore slavery, where the liberal government arrests human beings if they try to gain freedom illegally, companies and owners can legally take away things necessary for life. Are the homeless, starving, and dirt poor really free in any meaningful way?
I personally think we can build on liberal democracy and the concept of private property, but serious adjustments need to be made to actually have a free society. We need, at the bare minimum, a welfare state that ensures everyone has the necessities, and access to the tools for self improvement. A society that doesn’t give people fair chances is not a free society.
I’m in favor of limiting the private accumulation of wealth and power, as people shouldn’t have the unilateral power wielded by the current ultra rich. This wouldn’t be communism, but it would maximize freedom and minimize class conflict. It would democratize economic power as much as possible. Another key change would be making it as easy as possible to check the power of those who wield violence. Police must have democratic accountability.
The most controversial thing I think we need is a federation for peace, who’s sole purpose is limiting and resolving interstate conflict. It would work to destroy or neutralize weapons of mass destruction, while also binding member states to enforce agreements made by the federation. It would be fundamentally decentralized, relying on the shared self interest of humanity to squash the selfish interests of humanity. The goal would be to prevent a single player from holding too many cards, even the federation itself. I don’t expect it to happen until people recognize that we need it, but it is a part of the puzzle that cannot be overlooked: the quest to ensure liberty must be global, as the mechanisms that take away the most liberty, mostly global capitalism and imperialism, have no borders.
Capitalism IS 100% authoritarian. Any ideology which puts profit margins above individual rights and freedoms is authoritarian, be it monarchy, fascism or capitalism. /s
Capitalism is not an ideology. Get back to school, kiddo.
Neither if you are wrong. Sovereignty is key.
How does Communism put social constructs above individual rights and freedoms, especially moreso than Capitalism?
Communism puts society above an individual.
It does not. It puts individuals over the bourgeoisie.
No.
Regardless, there is an important distinction.
You can argue all you like that political systems like communism and socialism may have lead to things like corruption, famine, wars and genocide but ultimately, the people who support those systems are seeking a fairer way to run society for all people and believe in it despite its history.
Head over to the far-right and the genocide is the point. They want “undesirables” to be killed, enslaved or completely repressed.
That’s the rub though. Many of us do support democratic socialism and social democracy, and are excluded, mocked, and banned because those forms of leftist ideology aren’t edgy enough.
I’ve tried to calmly explain the academic basis for democratic socialism on lemmy a number of times, and it inevitably results in me getting banned, mostly for being critical of the shockingly violent rhetoric favored my ML purists.
Then either make your comment and eat the downvotes or just don’t make the comment at all. You’re functionally complaining that a Facebook anti-vax group isn’t listening to your science.
There’s no need to make that argument - history has made it time and time again, and if you succeed at a communist revolution, history will again show that it was a bad idea.
The problem isn’t the motives or empathy of the communist and socialist idealists. The problem is the willingness to face hard truths.
It’s definitely better to seek a better way to run society. But it’s definitely not better to claim you are doing so while executing an old, rehashed playbook of societal failure, claiming It Just Wasn’t Done Right Before™️.
We need a better system. Communism is not it. Any system you build must be one that resolvea the ideals of communism with the pragmatism of capitalism. When that system is found, it will address the weaknesses of both.
I think that system is culturally-rooted sovereignty - that each person takes responsibility for their own life and for the sovereignty of others, because it is in their own best interest to do so. It is how I live.
The nice ring about it is that I don’t have to convince anyone else to live that way - I get the benefits of it just by living it. The difficult thing about it is that I don’t get the psychological convenience of thinking others should think as I do - everyone has their own reasons to live as they do. Until they cross a sovereignty boundary, and I’m involved somehow, I get no say.
The problem with socialist revolutions is that they reject liberalism, which is foundational to the curation of bona fide political agency. If people are not free to engage organically with political questions, then how can you possibly say their will is manifest as government? “Protecting the revolution” is not a justification for denying people agency. And honest readers of history will find much irony in Lenin’s obsession with justifying his own Bolshevik coup as such.
This is an extremely simple idea, but Orthodox Marxist are so blinded by their hatred for all things western (because they are campists relitigating the cold war) that they miss the forest for the trees. For socialism to be the true expression of the people, the people must first be free.
Solid take.
Can we just not do either? I literally don’t care to read about how you think the world is bad on a community about onions
Welcome to lemmy.
Its unavoidable considering the creator of lemmy is a nazi, and Lemmy ml is his personal instance.
The creators are tankies, not Nazis. Just as hateful and stupid, but not the same
I really don’t give a flying fuck what label it is or what their prefered uniform is, or what their favorite color is.
They’re all the same pieces of shit that want to ruin society, the world, and the species, for their own personal flavor of power.
This is fundamentally untrue.
The foundations of Nazism are purely focused on superiority of an interior group over exterior groups, and is centered on Conquest.
The foundations of Communism are centered on creating a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society, and abolishing hierarchy.
To say that Communists are equivalent to Nazis is Nazi apologia, as it implies they have everyone’s best interests at heart rather than pure malice.
When I say tankie, I don’t mean the average communist, I mean the type of idiots who worship the Soviet Union and the CCP and share their authoritarian views. They’re not communists, they’re authoritarians, and are no better than Neo-Nazis with a red/gold coat of paint.
yes yes, you are super upset and offended that your authoritarian team has been compared to another authoritarian team and want to argue on a dictionary technicality that your authoritarianism is better than theirs, so everyone ignores the actual history and practice of it that makes your teams mass slaughter just as bad as that other teams mass slaughter.
What team do you think I’m on?
I’m pretty sure he’s on the other side of the spectrum. He’s a communist in the extreme
Rightwingers don’t deserve oxygen.
Bring out the death camps! We need to murder our political opponents.
Seriously though, we are all human. The world needs more love.
If we were all human and capable of love, this authoritarian shit wouldnt exist.
Amen
Yeah no shit if you go to the communist instance and say communists are just as bad as nazis, you’re gonna get banned. You even admit to doing this specifically to get banned in your own comment.
Like even though I’m a socialist, I think the guys at lemmy.ml are a bunch of nutjob tankies, but banning people that come to their instance just to be a troll, insult people and purposefully try to get banned isn’t actually a bad thing.
I have never said communists are as bad as nazies. That would be ridiculous thing for me to say because I don’t think that. Nazies are legitimately insane and scary. Communists are just naive idealogues.
“One for Communists is hardly any different as far as I’m concerned.”
Bruh.
Account for the context. I’m talking about lemmy instances. I don’t think echo chambers of any kind are good because it radicalizes people and causes more harm than good In my view.
The context is that you grouped Communists with Nazis and Islamist extremists, and are arguing that all of their equally terrible views should be silenced. One of these things is far and away not like the others, and you know it.
Radicalization isn’t a bad thing. For example, the only logical solution to Climate Change is radical changes in societal structure, else we make the impending damages even worse.
Oh now I want them silenced too.
I got a 30 day ban on my .ml account for telling the little troll clowns on Hexbear that their childish meme responses were cringy and embarrassing.
I’m just not going to use that account anymore. Let them drive their own community away. There’s better instances.
Yup. They post gifs of pig shit, I say that’s not contributing to the conversation, and then I get a ban for it and they keep literally shitting up the thread.
You compared communists to ethno-staters. There’s extremist and there’s radical.
“There the same picture”
Removed by mod
Can =/= are though, these words are describing with precision.
Removed by mod
I didn’t claim they’re the same. They’re all extremist however. Wanting to overhaul the entire economic system is kind of extreme, don’t you think?
Its radical, not extremist.
It’s radical, which is one type of extremist. It would evoke a reaction from reactionaries, another type of extremist.
Meanwhile, a practical love just wins.
I’ll just put this here
Thank you. Someone had to say it. This Valentine’s Day is sponsored by Lockheed Martin.
So practical.
The comment literally reads “they would hardly be any different”. What’s your point? That sweeping change is “kind of extreme”? Is this satire?
I don’t understand what’s the point of claiming I said something I didn’t when everyone can just read the message themselves. It does not say what you claim it does. You’re misquoting me and then attacking a statement I haven’t made.
Dude, I quoted you word for word from what you posted. PLEASE re-read the text from the image you posted of your post being removed. You deserved that shit 100% you’re a psycho. If this is satire it sucks
Radical, yes. Extremist, no.
deleted by creator
It’s maybe hard to realize but these moderators wants an environment where their users never see an uncomfortable opinion that upsets their users.
As an adult, I don’t have a problem with different opinions, but my teenage son has massive issues with it. He wants to go to war with people over opinions, and if they don’t agree with him, they are stupid. So I think it’s a maturity thing.
Sooner or later, you realize that people have different opinions, and censoring them doesn’t make them go away. The ability to discuss different opinions is what makes someone mature.
Anyway, I can absolutely understand why they don’t want to moderate difficult discussions. That’s a lot of work.
deleted by creator
Perhaps reddit would be more your jam?
It was. Too bad that place no longer exists.
I can no longer sign in on Infinity for Reddit
Honestly the political extremism makes me want to leave. I’ve already left a few communities and its sad to see the hate on even basic communities.
I just need to learn to ignore it
I left lemm.ee after a mod told me not to use profanity.
What? I assume you mean admin.
They haven’t told me anything and I use profanity all the time.
It’s also not in the instance rules.
Admin/Mod whatever. This is the message I got after reporting a troll and telling them off.
This isn’t meant to be a shit on lemm.ee comment. They operate the instance to be PG, that’s fine. It’s just not for me.
There are no rules on lemm.ee about profanity. There is one about abusive language which your comments might have fallen under, dunno.
I think there are a few NSFW communities on here.
I switched to lemm.ee because sopuli.xyz is prude instance and defederared from the biggest NSFW instance. Soon I’ll need to spin up my own instance since every instance has some issues hah
Hey! No throwing shade on lemm.ee in my thread!
this is some doctor house putting postits under people’s chairs predicting their responses in advance shit
It’s only 30 days, and you clearly know nothing about the nuances of communism to be fair.
Clearly…
I think you missed the point. The point is that we don’t want to learn the nuances of communism on every single community. I just want to spend some time on lemmy without seeing a comment about how the world is ending and having a authoritarian communist society is the only solution.
Well, this is a social media site and one for nerds at that, if you can’t handle some real-world news or discourse you should probably block those instances and communities. Those features exist for a reason lol.
you clearly know nothing about the nuances of communism
Nore does anyone one lemmygrad either, but that’s apparently fine
It’s not fine, no I bet you it’s cia funded or something to have such a big presence online. Tankies are surprisingly uncommon IRL in my experience. Maybe increasingly so, but it’s still hard to deny it as a threat to real leftism. Raddle.me seems much more levelheaded if anybody’s looking for a explicitly anti-authoritarian alternative
You’re reading comprehension leaves something to be desired, I’m never saying anywhere that it’s fine, I’m saying that apparently it’s fine according to the person I was replying to, the word “apparently” is critical in understanding the sentence.
*Your
I’ll just leave this here
Thanks. I tried to post the original link but it just says “No posts.” Weird.
I’ve always found it odd why we don’t treat communism in the same vein as Nazism.
They’re both horrific ideologies that have led to the deaths of millions, but one is considered trendy.
They are radically different but authoritarians have corrupted both to be the same brute force regime. Communism shouldn’t have any specific single leader. It should be a conference of lots of little communities that participate together to make a state work. Sadly authoritarian ideals corrupt politics and make people want to rule that should never be leaders in the first place. Those leaders install their own friends who run the government into the ground - and it’s the government model that is to blame?
There’s no difference between them. That’s the thing. Two words for the same pile of shit.
It’s not “considered trendy”, your understanding of communism – an economic system – is just conflated with authoritarianism – a political system. You can advocate for one without advocating for the other.
That said, capitalism also leads to the deaths of millions, but somehow that’s just an unquestionable fact of life.
![[META] Never change, lemmy.ml](https://i.imgur.com/1pxAyiq.jpg){kind=link}