Very interesting how all those “pretend socialists” only exist in the third world, and all the “real socialists” existin the west. Yet all the successful revolutions have been done in the third world by “pretend socialists”, and the so called “real socialists” in the west have accomplished nothing. Their biggest success of the “real socialists” in the west being capitalist welfare states or social democracies that rely on old school imperial relationships to fund their welfare in a select few areas.
No Eurocentrism present to this line of thought here at all…
What do you think of Nelson Mandela OP? He was a very good leader, right? You know that he considered Cuba an ally and supported their revolution as Cuba sent troops to fight against the apartheid government in the border wars, took inspiration from Mao and called the Chinese revolution a miracle, thanked the Soviets for giving unending support in the fight against apartheid while receiving the a Lenin Peace Prize? So is Nelson Mandela now a fascist according to your meme?
This has nothing to do with any of that.
The best results (for certain degrees of “good”, see the “Fuck Cars” movement, #MoreThanJustBikes and Racist by Design for its downsides) from any socialist experiment to ever be undertaken was, of all things, the US Interstate Highway Act. Yes, the highways that serve as the beacon of Capitalist freedom are also socialist; they’re funded by taxes.
Now, Communism is another beast entirely. In a Communist society, 100% of the economy is planned and funded by taxes; this quite simply puts too much power in too few hands, much like America’s current corporate oligarchy but as a nationalized monopoly. Authoritarians adore a concentration of power and will consume and violate powerful positions if given the option.
A government railroad is not communism. A public school system is not communism.
The reason to fear communism is because it is designed by extremely authoritarian individuals, not because it runs off your tax dollars.
Socialism is an aquarium within which the communist fish (communist nations) are dead but the capitalist fish (corporations) are the tiny fish feeding of the remaining government fish (the modern globalized nations of the world, regardless of stability, technology or form of government), which vary in health and size but are generally bigger and healthier than the capitalist fish… Except day by day the government fish get thinner and weaker and certain capitalist fish get fat off the blood they leech. The blood is tax-funded resources like health care, and the capitalist fish which aren’t growing fat off the government fish are the charities, unions and the average persons who collect food for and pick parasites off the skin of the government fish.
Obviously that’s abstract, but the relationship is basically that. You are already socialist, you just don’t realise socialism can exist beyond the trap that is planned economics.
Highways aren’t socialist. The government building infastructure is not what socialism is.
You are politically illiterate, yet very confindent. You don’t know what socialism or communism is and yet you pretend to have this all fugured out.
Did it ever occur to read any of the many books or pamphlets written by actual socialist thinkers that explain what we believe?
I acknowledge that ‘socialism’ is a vague term with dozens of definitions, but this strange strictly-American idea that publicly-funded infrastructure is socialist isn’t a useful definition, nor a common one. It will really just confuse people.
Historically and presently, socialism is a labour movement which, despite all the variations, had the common goal of the workers controlling their means of production, rather than the owning class. Almost every political dictionary and socialist will back that up, and also Wikipedia (for something we can check right now). It’s not about whether something is private or public.
Paying taxes and voting in a (systematically broken, throroughly corrupted) government representative democracy isn’t really accomplishing this. We are arill beholden to the owning capitalist class. How I spend my working hours is still governed by a bourgeois board of directors, I don’t own the tools I use, I don’t have meaningful power to make democratic decisions about my work or my society governance.
You are correct that socialism exists (present tense! see: Zapatistas) without planned economies. But if you want to see what socialist modes of organisation look like within capitalism, it would be a workers cooperative.
Anti-car movements are not socialist nor socialism. They are good and pro-society, but are completely incidental to the socialist movement.
Collectively-funded operations like roads, police and our military airstriking hospitals aren’t socialist nor socialism. We have no control over the use of our money and labour; even if voting was democratic power in practice, a campaigning platform isn’t a guarantee of policy, they can completely ignore that once elected. And also, no matter who you vote for, your tax money will still go towards anti-socialism!
As for the parts about communism, well, no. The definition you’ve invented wildly conflicts with both theory and historical events. You’re gonna have to start from scratch on that one, even just looking at the Wiki article will provide a much better base. Very popular ideologies like anarcho-communism just completely contradict all that.
Don’t bother friend. I know from long experience that they will insist on defining the terms of the discussion on their own, as if some whack job fringe theorist is somehow to be accorded the final word in adjudicating our use of language.
The problem therein is of course that when your opponent gets to set the parameters of meaning and discussion, you aren’t really exchanging ideas on an intellectually even playing field.
I’ve pointed this out many times over the years, but it still hasn’t taken with your true believers/idiots.
Long story short; don’t waste your time; you aren’t arguing with good-faith interlocutors.
They are playing semantic games and have no interest in honest discussion.
To them. You and I are simply uneducated morons who have yet to receive the true message.
Noted fringe theorists no one ever heard of Marx and Engels.
I’m sure people have tried to define basic terms like socialism to you because you’re politically illiterate. Thats not a scam to “define terms” to win an arguement it is a literal defining of terms, of actual words, that you don’t know the meaning of
Don’t bother friend. I know from long experience that they will insist on defining the terms of the discussion on their own, as if some whack job fringe theorist is somehow to be accorded the final word in adjudicating our use of language.
Ahh right, why should adherents of an ideology have any say in how that ideology is defined and how terminology specific to that ideology means?
The problem therein is of course that when your opponent gets to set the parameters of meaning and discussion
Your opponents shouldn’t get to set the definitions, but the opponents of socialism should get to set the definition of socialism. Makes sense.
you aren’t really exchanging ideas on an intellectually even playing field.
Correct, thought the intellectual disparity clearly cleaves in the opposite direction to what you believe.
So many words to tell us you’ve read zero theory…
Also, how on earth is “Fuck cars” a successful “socialist experiment”? The biggest action anyone associated with that movement is flatten a few tires from SUV’s
What the fuck, you completely misread that.
Interstate Highways and similar systems are “successful” socialism, as far as I understand socialism, because they are a piece of tax-funded infrastructure that has outlasted and avoided issues that have proven inherent to soviet-style, communist nation-states.
Yes, the highways that serve as the beacon of Capitalist freedom are also socialist; they’re funded by taxes.
Socialism is when the government does stuff
Socialism is an aquarium within which the communist fish (communist nations) are dead but the capitalist fish (corporations) are the tiny fish feeding of the remaining government fish (the modern globalized nations of the world, regardless of stability, technology or form of government), which vary in health and size but are generally bigger and healthier than the capitalist fish… Except day by day the government fish get thinner and weaker and certain corporate fish get fat off the blood they leech. The blood is tax-funded resources like health care, and the capitalist fish which aren’t growing fat off the government fish are the charities, unions and the average persons who collect food for and pick parasites off the skin of the government fish.
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?
Socialism is when the government does stuff.
Uh, yeah? Socialism is a product or service provided by a government agency at a reduced or waived price. The products and services in question don’t just happen.
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?
Trying to explain the world economic state to the extremists on both sides of the political spectrum. Because they don’t seem to understand mass media lied about the definitions of various political ideologies. Sush.
Nelson Mandela was not a great man. At least not great enough to be so admired while F.W De Klerk had his funeral protested (F.W De Klerk helped end Apartheid).
Nelson Mandela did no more besides be a figurehead and help make a constitution that no one (not even when he was in power) follows. The ANC is corrupt to this day
Im going to come by your homestead with a handgun past midnight and make you feel true fear, Afrikaner maggot
I’m South African, I know who F.W de Klerk is. Don’t lie about what he did, there’s a reason he was unanimously booed while receiving his joint noble peace prize. He didn’t help end apartheid, he was forced into a position where it was the only viable option. Pure pragmatism. He was a member of the NP for many years, he willingly joined that organisation at the height of apartheid in 1972. If he was actually interested in ending fighting apartheid, he would have joined a liberation movement, not the apartheid party.
de Klerk was an apartheid president that was so corrupt he ordered the incineration of evidence of his, and his parties, corruption and crimes against humanity to be carried out by industrial steel smelters. Not to mention what he did with all the “third force” shenanigans towards the end of apartheid that almost caused civil war. It’s been revealed that he knew all about it. Or all the racist things he said later in life that revealed his true character, such as refusing to call apartheid a crime against humanity. Yes, I also used to be a liberal that thought de Klerk was a good guy that helped end apartheid, that was until I actually decided to do some research into the matter. Nelson Mandela said it best when it comes to de Klerk:
“Despite his seemingly progressive actions, Mr de Klerk was by no means the great emancipator…He did not make any of his reforms with the intention of putting himself out of power. He made them for precisely the opposite reason: to ensure power for the Afrikaner in a new dispensation.”
Yes the ANC is now extremely corrupt, it was effectively couped by corporate interests in the late 90s and early 2000s. Remember the move from RPD to GEAR? Thabo Mbeki and Trevor Manuel? Ramaphosa running away to make money in McDonalds and mining instead of succeeding Mandela? Leaving the door open for Mbeki to become president, a self described Thacherite who instituted austerity measures, underfund Eskom and give South Africa it’s first bout of load shedding, and denied that HIV causes AIDS, killing hundreds of thousands in the process? This all paved the way for Zuma’s corruption and ineptitude, and for Ramaphosa to come back, even after his shameful involvement in Marikana. Yes the ANC is shamefully corrupt, incompetent and useless, and it’s interesting to look at exactly how it got to that position.
Authoritarian nations I can name off the top of my head tend to be near the top of that “chart”; I certainly don’t think Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China or Trump’s America are “okay”, especially not just because of the leader’s skin color or ancestry.
All governments are authoritarian. Its a meaningless term. Its usually thrown at any state opposing the US as part of the xenophobic rhetoric used in western propoganda toward its enemies.
Lumping nazis and other fascists in with communists is a technique used to smear socialism and make nazis look less bad. Its nazi apologia
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