• @[email protected]
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    -62 years ago

    Oh you sweet summer western child, you actually think that this kind of dystopian communist society can actually exist 😂😂😂

  • @[email protected]
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    -12 years ago

    I thought owning the means of production was the point, but requiring a consistent argument from a communist is like requiring a consistent argument from a communist.

    • @[email protected]
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      122 years ago

      “Common ownership” as in the workers collectively own the means of production. You, individually, don’t get to own it, but a union of workers, a local collective, or the state might own it and decisions would be made, ostensibly, by the workers who make up those entities.

        • @[email protected]
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          32 years ago

          There would generally be mandatory meetings for workers to attend that would allow for debates on the trajectory of the company. The state would “own” it but the workers would still direct it.

          In a very very small way, it is like what Germany does with large corporations. They require a percentage of the board of directors be actual workers so it’s not just a bunch of capitalist parasites making decisions that would hurt workers just to boost their own portfolios/profits.

    • @[email protected]
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      52 years ago

      An individual can’t own the means of production, it’s supposed to be “owned” by the people. I’m not a communist, but that argument never changed.

  • @[email protected]
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    -42 years ago

    One wouldn’t be allowed to build a factory and then own it? No wonder communists are nazi-tier.

  • Tedesche
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    2 years ago

    How’s about a website that generates money, like Facebook or YouTube? Can you own that?

    What about products that designed to create ongoing streams of revenue, like a patent on an invention or a piece of art you can collect royalties from every time it is displayed? The USSR famously took ownership of Tetris away from its creator.

    Under communism, how does the stock market work? I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s pretty hard to imagine getting rid of it now that the global economy is pretty much dependent on it.

    Today, five countries exist that can be said to be communist: China, Russia, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. Of those five, none have achieved actual communism, and several have inarguably embraced capitalism to a great extent. All of them have essentially authoritarian governments. Which is unsurprising, since a dictatorship of the proletariat is central to the Marxist vision of how to create a communist society, and involves the creation of a single-party transitional government that forcibly suppresses all its critics and rivals.

    I’m not big into capitalism and I think we should implement plenty of socialist reforms, but I will never understand why some people on the Left—or anyone for that matter—think communism is what we should be striving for.

    • @[email protected]
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      222 years ago

      The USSR famously took ownership of Tetris away from its creator.

      He developed the game on company time. If he’d lived in a capitalist country, the government wouldn’t have taken control of Tetris, but the company would have. Every software company contract I’ve ever heard of has a clause that says the company owns any code you produce while working there.

      • Tedesche
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        -32 years ago

        Yes, but you choose to work for a company. Don’t pretend that’s the same as the government of the country you happen to be born in taking ownership of your creations. In a capitalist country, had Alexey Pajitnov chosen to develop the game himself, he would have made much more from it. If he had done that in the USSR, he’d still have his creation and all its monetary proceeds taken away from him.

      • @[email protected]
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        -22 years ago

        I’ve worked at a handful of companies and am currently employed at one that do not do this.

    • @[email protected]
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      402 years ago

      “Today, five countries exist that can be said to be communist: China, Russia”

      Tell me you have no idea what you are talking about without directly telling me you have no idea what you are talking about. In what way can today’s Russia “be said to be communist”, and how does its current, very explicitly anti-communist government, contribute to the point you are making?

      • notsharp
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        12 years ago

        I once read somewhere that presently no country in the world runs government in the form of 100% true communism including China and Russia. They are just some sort of mixed communism and other types.

      • Tedesche
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        -252 years ago

        You can replace Russia with North Korea if it suits you, I forgot to include that one. Yes, the USSR was communist, while modern day Russia much less so. Doesn’t change my point and doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 years ago

          Dude, what you just said is on the level of saying 2+2=5. Or, “like any forms of sandwich, bananas are sentient.” It was THAT level of incorrect and detached from reality.

        • TheDankHold
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          342 years ago

          Modern Russian is a capitalist oligarchy. Your entire position is based on ignorance of how the world functions.

          • Tedesche
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            -182 years ago

            You point out one quasi-mistake I made and all of a sudden my entire position is false and based on ignorance of how the world functions?

            People like you are what make the internet a shitty place to be sometimes.

            • @[email protected]
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              242 years ago

              It’s not a quasi-mistake, it’s an error that betrays at best a bad case of brainworms and at worst a grievous misunderstanding of history that may well have happened in your lifetime.

    • @[email protected]
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      302 years ago

      Stock market? The thing where you buy tiny fractional ownership of of a company, too small to influence it, then try to sell that legal construct for a little more to someone else later? Why would you need that at all?

      • Tedesche
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        -32 years ago

        As I said, not a fan of it, but the global economy is pretty entrenched in it. Can’t just get rid of it cold turkey style.

    • @[email protected]
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      12 years ago

      No you wouldn’t be able to own Facebook or Youtube as its private not personal property.

      Patents could either not exist or be owned collectively depending on the flavour of your ideology.

      There would not be a stock market as that would be private ownership even though most stocks on stock exhanges do nothing even if you own all of them.

    • @[email protected]
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      12 years ago

      think communism is what we should be striving for.

      Simple - it’s the ideal. Will we ever get there? Possibly not. Is it even desirable? Debatable. But it’s always better to know where to go and not know how to get there than having the option of going anywhere and not knowing where to go.

      • Tedesche
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        22 years ago

        Simple - it’s the ideal.

        Not in my view. I don’t want the State owning all sources of wealth and material goods. The problem with capitalism is that too much of that stuff gets funneled into too few hands. Communism is the same problem, just different people. No thanks.

        • Patapon Enjoyer
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          02 years ago

          I don’t want the State

          Sounds like your problem is with something else because, by definition, communism is stateless

        • Patapon Enjoyer
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          12 years ago

          I don’t want the State

          Sounds like your problem is with something else because, by definition, communism is stateless

        • @[email protected]
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          02 years ago

          I don’t want the State owning all sources of wealth and material goods.

          Good news - neither do communists! In fact communists want NO state :D

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      This. Someone who knows how to use their brain.

      There is no Paradise. There is no solution. Reality will always be messy and every solution will always end up creating its own problems. True for capitalism, socialism, or any other social order.

      Which is not to say we should not always attempt to improve the world.

    • @[email protected]
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      112 years ago

      No you can’t own a platform like youtube or facebook, but you could make content on it, intellectul propriety is not a thing as you don’t have to produce art just to get a monetary return, but just because you enjoy doing so, there’s no need of a stock market in an ideal communist world because everyone gets what they need based on what they can provide, but if it’s just a country i guess it’s the government who takes care of it.

      Regarding those 5 countries i’m not sure of every one of them, but talking about China as you said it’s not a communist country but it is not a dictatorship of the proletarian either, as it’s not the proletarian class nor their democratically elected representatives who govern the country.

      In the end i’ll add that greed is not more “human nature” that wishing to kill someone annoying.

      • @[email protected]
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        112 years ago

        We didn’t own Reddit’s platform, but we made content and engagement for that community anyway.

        That worked out awesome. Let’s scale it up to an entire society.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            Yeah, fair. I mean, I’m engaging in the community here, rather than there, so I thought the context clarified my sarcasm.

      • Tedesche
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        -42 years ago

        Give me an example of a communist country that has not resulted in the creation of an authoritarian government.

        • @[email protected]
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          62 years ago

          Capitalism is an authoritarian, both liberal and conservative wants capitalism, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. You don’t have choices.

        • @[email protected]
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          02 years ago

          Give me an example of any single communist country with an authoritarian government

          And note that what I just asked for is like asking for a sandwich without bread

        • @[email protected]
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          -12 years ago

          You’re not wrong, but also give me an example of ANY country that doesn’t resort to authoritarianism when the government is threatened by a plurality of citizens.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            …any democracy? Different governments get voted out of power constantly. A lot of countries elections are almost 50/50

            • TheDankHold
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              52 years ago

              I would say you’re arguing from ignorance then. The civil war in America happened because slavers didn’t like the outcome of an election.

              • @[email protected]
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                22 years ago

                They asked for an example of ANY country that doesn’t resort to authoritarianism when the government is threatened by a plurality of citizens. You can choose any currently functioning democracy after a tight election.

                • TheDankHold
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                  2 years ago

                  The question becomes then, are those stable democracies threatened? I would argue no, that you’re using irrelevant examples to prove your position.

                  American capitalism was threatened to an extent by Bernie’s campaign and a contemporary cnn headline compared his “rise” to that of Hitler. So you tell me. Do they get defensive when actual leftist principles are on the line. Looks to me that it is the case.

          • Tedesche
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            72 years ago

            There are plenty of governments out there that aren’t authoritarian. What do you mean when you say “the government is threatened by a plurality of citizens?” What is the nature of the threat in question? A democratically-elected government that puts down an armed rebellion from part of its populace doesn’t magically become authoritarian simply because it used forced to maintain its existence in response to a domestic threat.

            • @[email protected]
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              22 years ago

              I mean that there is a realistic existential threat placed on the system of government, by a large part of the population. By plurality, I mean that the largest segment of a population (even if it’s not a majority).

              You’re telling me that govt’s that put down a large rebellion don’t then start introducing authoritan laws like monitoring communication, restricting free speech, and targeting non-violent sympathizers?

    • @[email protected]OP
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      112 years ago

      Those websites are highly capitalistic and never brought any innovation, all technologies related to the internet were researched by public money.

      Look into patent trolls. Patents are bad, publicly funded research is always better, but it doesn’t prevent people from spending money to do research, but it doesn’t entitle them for the profits.

      I’m not advocating FOR communism, I’m just trying to dispel myths.

      Socialism is soluble with capitalism.

      • @[email protected]
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        72 years ago

        Never brought any innovation? VP9, AV1, zstd, GraphQL, React, and many more were made/contributed to by Google/Facebook specifically to improve those services. We benefit from this as they release these programs/formats.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          02 years ago

          Programs and format are not research. Nothing new was invented, they’re just alternative to existing things.

          • @[email protected]
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            32 years ago

            They’re improvements on existing things, which is the basis for pretty much all research. A nuclear reactor is just an “alternative” to a coal power plant, but I’m sure everyone here would agree that the nuclear power plant is better. In the case of the video formats, image/video processing is literally part of computer science.

            In the case of React, you could follow the breadcrumbs back to JavaScript, created by a capitalistic company.

    • @[email protected]
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      -12 years ago

      How’s about a website that generates money, like Facebook or YouTube? Can you own that?

      no, because those are not good for society

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        Who decides what’s good? I learned lots of stuff on YouTube and Facebook helped me stay in touch with people I would have never been able to connect with again otherwise.

    • @[email protected]
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      102 years ago

      If it makes money (or some equivalent) then you can’t own it. Parents aren’t necessarily, if you’re supported so that you can invent for the betterment of society or for fun.

      Dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to be a temporary phase, but it is a fundamental weak point in the transition to communism that I think cannot be overcome, because once people get that power, they won’t be able to give it up (or they’ll be removed by people who don’t want to give it up).

      So I consider communism sort of an unattainable ideal that we should strive towards rather than actually considering implementing irl.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        Marx believed in the natural progression of economic systems, from feudalism to mercantilism, mercantilism to capitalism, and capitalism to… well, something else anyway. Socialism, communism, fascism, and really any of the other isms that came about in the late 19th and 20ths centuries were meant as post-capitalist systems. Marx of course was a proponent of socialism or communism, but it’s not a foregone conclusion that one of those will be the preeminent system after capitalism.

        Anyway, my point is that the USSR et. al. were too early to the game. Capitalism hasn’t yet run its course naturally.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          I agree with everything you said, although important to note that “natural progression” may not be smooth progression. How much suffering needs to pass before a violent uprising is natural instead of forced? I expect it’s hard to tell when you’re in the thick of it.

    • Yeather
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      -202 years ago

      It’s not, never once has communism worked, not has socialism ever worked. They all end up being dictatorships and the same capitalist problems for the others. Only difference is there is barely any social climb in a dictatorship except at the beginning.

      • @[email protected]
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        142 years ago

        Claiming socialism had “barely any social climb except at the beginning” unlike capitalism is not something that you can do while maintaining any shred of honesty. The reality is objectively the complete opposite. While there are plenty of valid criticisms of the USSR, access to education was not segregated by wealth, top universities were open to all who knew their shit, and throughout its entire history party leaders tended to come from humble backgrounds.

        Now, compare the above with the USA.

        • Yeather
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          -82 years ago

          Access to education is not segregated by wealth either. Coming from a blue collar family I’m able to go to a very prestigious and expensive university because I’m smart and recieved plenty of academic scholarships and support I sought out. If you can’t get the majority of your college paid for through scholarships you are doing something wrong. Plenty of great, and rich Americans come from humble backgrounds, this point is is applicable to any society. From a cursory search, the only party member that actually had the grass roots humble beginning was Gorbachev, all the others had significant connections from others in the party that propelled them into power.

      • @[email protected]
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        02 years ago

        Hey I am all for socialism, most functioning nations have some high level of socialism in play. The issue here is a full blown case of black and white ism.

        Nationalized healthcare, Nationalized oil and gas, Nationalized education, Nationalized utilities, Nationalized violence. All in place in most civilized places. Someone owning a farm is not the issue, its someone owning the place that buys the grain and controls the price.

    • ghost_laptopM
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      -12 years ago

      Socialism is the stage previous to communism when there’s a State in which the proletariat is in power, the purpose of the State is to use its repressive forces by one class over the other to oppress them and keep them in place, capitalism (also called the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie) has the bourgeois as its ruling class and oppresses the proletariat, socialism (also called the dictatorship of the proletariat) utilizes the State to oppress the bourgeoisie until global socialism is achieved, on that point on class society is abolished and the State is dissolved. This late stage is what we call communism.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    Honest question, at what point does a workshop transition from ownable to not?

    A small garage shop with a workbench and a tool wall is obvious enough, but can you own a separate workshop outside your home? Can it be far down the street, or out in a barn somewhere, or in the outskirts of town among large factories? Can you own a lathe? Can you own a CNC machine?

    What tools are ownable and what tools are not? What’s the scale-cutoff?

    Bandsaws, drill presses, welders, large trucks, small trucks, cranes, sheet metal cutters and benders, pipe benders, etc.

    Can you buy material? How much? Should it be limited by something else than your funds?

    If you take on jobs that are too much for you to handle on your own, do you have to either make your means of small scale production communal, or give up the job?

    Please draw some lines for me here.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 years ago

      Honest question, at what point does a workshop transition from ownable to not

      If you also live in it, it becomes personal property - ie, ownable by you personally.

      or in the outdoors of town among large factories?

      I mean, that pretty much means it already is factory-like and no, it doesn’t become ownable (unless you also live in it). If it involves other people’s labor, then all the grey areas vanishes - it becomes communal.

      The picture above is not completely accurate - a community might decide, for instance, that all firearms must be communally owned - ie, as in a communal arsenal (essentially a library for guns) - which, let’s face it, would probably be necessary anywhere in the US (because it has more guns than people - and far less sense).

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        I don’t like communism then.

        Letting the “commune” take over a workshop would immediately break everything.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          That’s the thing… there won’t be police around to protect your private property for you - which means that no-one is going to be forced to labor for your profit. If you have people working in that workshop, nothing will stop them from appropriating it from you and running it as a co-op for the benefit of the community and not you exclusively. This is why the wealthy and the privileged hates socialism.

          • @[email protected]
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            12 years ago

            No, I mean if you and your cousins have unlimited access to the machines, the machines will break.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              No, I mean there won’t be police around to protect your private property for you - which means that no-one is going to be forced to labor for your profit.

    • @[email protected]
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      72 years ago

      The line? When you start selling things to people en mass. One or two custom things you sell occasionally? Workshop. Start setting up production lines and hiring people? Now it’s for the people

      • Nano
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        -72 years ago

        Yes, yes plenty of food and healthcare is so professional, it’s like paradise on earth.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 years ago

          I was charged $12,000 to stay in an ER room while doctors did test after test on my 3 day old baby. We never got any results given to us and in the end we were told none of those tests were needed.

          An X Ray, two spinal taps, a dozen blood draws - not a single result. We went for low blood sugar. The hospital kept giving him tests so they could keep charging us. But that’s what you get when healthcare is for profit.

          Yeah the system we’re using right now in the US is amazing. /s

  • Nano
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    -62 years ago

    You just described healthcare system in soviet union. Instead of money vodka was used, as money was worthless, and there were no foods in grocery stores. Doctors were drunk and barley came to work. Communism just makes everything even more worse than it already is. There so many horror stories you don’t hear.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      52 years ago

      it was totalitarian, nobody wants a totalitarian state. communism and totalitarianism are different things

      why don’t you quote the homeless people in the US and the drug problems of philadelphia, the capitalism of south africa, and saudi arabia?

      we disagree, it’s okay.