I’ve been speaking with other more informed communists and they’ve told me that none actually exist. Is this true?
China, Laos, and Vietnam: now notoriously capitalists. Workers work 12+ hours with no protection in horrible factory conditions. Suicide rates are so high that suicide nets are installed. The air is so polluted millions die from lung cancer, especially factory workers w/out basic masks. Corporations dominate
North Korea: Undemocratically ruled by the Kim dynasty. Jong un indulges lavishly at the expense of his citizens, ordering millions in fine wine and trips from Denis Rodman. They might be the most socialist though, as Juche seems to otherwise be democratic.
Cuba: Sanctions have taken a massive toll, but even taking that into account the country still has its own problems. They have massive food shortages and inventory probs and aren’t self sufficient after 60+ years. Why couldn’t they’ve use machinery imported from the Soviet Union to develop their agriculture and fishery? The Soviets supported them heavily. They seem to be incredibly mismanaged or corrupt
Can you be more specific about which 10 principles? Bunch of different people claim to have such a thing.
I would head some things off in the last question, though. Why should we want a “normal” society? Shouldn’t we fight for liberation, which necessarily falls outside current norms? Shouldn’t we allow societies freedom to structure themselves in different ways under a framework of liberation? Imposing a “normal” society reminds me of Residential Schools, the attempt to destroy indigenous societies through Western indoctrination and removal from their families.
The other thing to think about is the meaning of democracy, as the term is laden with a huge amount of propaganda and weaponization of thought patterns. I see Westerners call projects they work on democratic because sometimes people get to vote on parts of it even though power truly rests with, say, the people funding it or the people using interpersonal influence to direct the actual work to the exclusion of the voters. I see those same Westerners use cliches of “authoritarianism” to describe countries that actually respond to people’s needs while their own country ignores their own needs but buys their complacency with a limited voting system. I think we should question how the term is used and what we really mean by it, as well as whether our definitions of it mean that a space is actually made better through adopting allegedly democratic practices. Does it involve the people? Does it give them sufficient power? Does it defend against oppression? Is it a tool of oppression? These questions must be answered before a particular idea of democracy can be implicitly considered a good thing.
As an example, I don’t remember voting to or otherwise being able to use the existing system to prevent the genocide the Palestinian people, but most people seem to be very comfortable calling the US a democracy. I do remember being taught white supremacist narratives in school as if they were fact - do my peers that got duped participate in a democracy if they have been throughly propagandized? What if they have no time outside of work to investigate anything? Etc etc.
So you do fundamentally agree that democracy is good, correct? And you would be opposed to a society where a ruling class pretended it was sanctioned by the working class, right?
Anyway, here are the 10 principles as they were originally written. How do you feel about them?
- We must give our all in the struggle to unify the entire society with the revolutionary ideology of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung.
- We must honor the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung with all our loyalty.
- We must make absolute the authority of the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must make the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung’s revolutionary ideology our faith and make his instructions our creed.
- We must adhere strictly to the principle of unconditional obedience in carrying out the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung’s instructions.
- We must strengthen the entire party’s ideology and willpower and revolutionary unity, centering on the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must learn from the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung and adopt the communist look, revolutionary work methods and people-oriented work style.
- We must value the political life we were given by the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung, and loyally repay his great political trust and thoughtfulness with heightened political awareness and skill.
- We must establish strong organizational regulations so that the entire party, nation and military move as one under the one and only leadership of the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must pass down the great achievement of the revolution by the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung from generation to generation, inheriting and completing it to the end.
So you do fundamentally agree that democracy is good, correct?
I don’t think you really read what I wrote, lol. I said that the entire concept of what is democratic should be challenged and questioned.
And you would be opposed to a society where a ruling class pretended it was sanctioned by the working class, right?
You’d have to make this coherent with a class analysis. If the ruling class is pretending to have the support of the working class, i.e. is not itself of the working class, then what class is ruling? There is no general answer to this question, you must apply it to a real country with its class divisions.
Anyway, here are the 10 principles as they were originally written. How do you feel about them?
They make me feel… bored? They were/are a line taken against perceived discontent factions, with the figure of Kim Il-Sung used as a cudgel to say, “shut the fuck up”. I guess they also remind me of the silly things that ignorant Westerners believe about North Korea and of the power of choosing words during translation.
Anyway, here are the 10 principles as they were originally written. How do you feel about them?
That’s weird they wrote em in English
