Even from people that never lived in a communist state
edit: im 17 and i hate communism
Lemmy, the social network, started off as a leftist hangout spot.
From the perspective of “Open Source developers who are anti-Reddit pro-Fediverse”, it makes a lot of sense for Leftist/Communist and anti-corporation leaning people to hang out.
After all, the more extreme the viewpoint, the more driven to action (ie: write tens-of-thousands of lines of code and release for free) people get. In some regards, its the nature of Open Source + volunteer effort to attract a more extreme ideology. IE: Free Software is driven by ideology, not by money. So you get ideological people, especially when the software is small and niche.
The July 2023 Reddit Blackout was a big challenge for Lemmy’s old community and the new community, as the new community basically “invaded” a large scale leftist hangout spot. But hopefully we all learn to work together and the nature of our neighbors moving forward.
I think anyone here (likely everyone?) is at least on the anti-corporate anti-Reddit side of the discussion. Which is enough of an alliance to keep us together, for now.
It does mean that we’ll have to keep up with the far-left old-timers on this network who wish to push their viewpoints. But they are the legacy and the start of Lemmy in some respects, even as the hypergrowth (starting in July 2023) has moderated the community pretty severely.
I don’t see the problem with people having communist views…capitalism isn’t great.
I mean, I don’t have much problem with people disagreeing with me. But I’m pretty openly pro-capitalist, though I’m not a dumbass libertarian.
I recognize the need for the “capitalist edge cases” (externalities, monopolies, etc. etc.) that must be regulated and fixed for the system to work. I also recognize that we’ve failed to regulate externalities (ex: CO2 emissions), and failed to regulate monopolies / anticompetitive behavior (see Google).
So I’m a “capitalism works, but only if we work to make it work” kind of person. I think at the moment, Reddit and many other social networks are falling into the well known and well studied failures of raw capitalism, but somehow today’s society has forgotten all the 1910s era solutions that we did (ex: Jungle, etc. etc.) where we regulated the hell out of the shitty behavior and fixed the most blatant problems, for the better of America.
We just gotta do the same thing today.
Overall, I accept that the commies / tankies were here first, and the history of Lemmy makes it clear why that happened.
A leftist world view is the correct world view in my book. What I can’t stand are people who defend Russia and China.
What are you on about? “its the nature of Open Source + volunteer effort to attract a more extreme ideology”? Aside from your first sentence, this is just baseless word salad.
I mean just that.
Open source developers are not paid in money. One of the other major motivators is ideology, so that becomes a major motivator in practice.
All I can say is that you clearly have no familiarity with open source development or the active contributors within it.
American says communism and means socialism
American says communism and means conservative democrat or Trump Republican, depending on who is saying it.
AES barely even registers, except for the occasional “Why don’t you move to Vuvuzela!”
Why isn’t anyone defending AEC countries?
Nobody actually wants to be Estonia anymore
I think it’s because my rent is a third of my income and im not allowed to function without not only feeding the parasites but making them morbidly obese.
Rent is only a third of your income? You lucky bastard.
Half for me :(
so first you choose these parasites and then you hate them? How unfortunate…
Sadly I was born in the world in which they had a massive head start and already own a lot of apartments making it more difficult for me to own one. Ever played monopoly? Thats what it’s actually about.
First you choose to be a wage slave and then you hate your bosses?It’s not really a choice. If you don’t want to be on the streets then you have two options: buy or rent. (There is a third: squatting, but that has its own downsides.) Presumably riodoro1 can’t buy (or has chosen not to for some other reason) and doesn’t want to be homeless or a squatter.
I’ve lived all my life under capitalism and I hate it.
I’ve read Marx, (for real, grab the book and read it!) and I see the dude does have a point.
How someone can downvote two subjective statements of opinion (hates capitalism, sees a point in a book) is beyond me. There’s nothing to downvote here. It’s an opinion, not a statement of fact that is incorrect.
People misuse downvotes.
That’s an easy question to answer. People often downvote comments that waste their time. Opinions that have no basis, or that are based on bad definitions or falsehoods, those tend to get downvoted. Because there’s nothing to learn and nothing to discuss.
My approach is to only downvote factual inaccuracies or extremely terrible takes. I know that’s not for everyone, but I wish it was.
I strongly recommend you to read Animal Farm, it’s very easy to understand
oh you are 17. When I was 17 I also was just like you.
Also disliked communism?
When I was 17? Hell yeah, with the information I had back then.
I was super conservative lol.
I’ve read it.
Orwell was socialist my dude.
Ever read one of his other books Down and Out in Paris and London?
It helps explain why he is a socialist.
I did and it is stupid propaganda.
I recommend you learn from real books about real life like those of Marx and Lenin, not fiction.
“I’m 17 and I hate communism”
😂 enough said. Come back when you’re a bit older and a bit wiser.
Let’s not be condescending and ageist. I was well into my ‘40’s when I even entertained learning about socialism or communism. We all have to start sometime.
You don’t even have to be wise to understand the problems communism has, it only helps
So your comment doesn’t make sense.
I’m 52 and I hate communism. Whatcha got now?
Because there’s nothing wrong with being communist, and yet most of western civilization publicly demonizes communism and anyone who espouses communist views. Given the freedom to share an idea without fearing ad hominem attacks, ideas are judged on their merits alone.
See also: Satanism, Atheism, Socialism.
There’s nothing wrong with communism or being communist, correct. But what we know for fact is that the human species is incompatible with communism, moreso as the population is increased. There is, by nature, traits within that are antagonistic with communism. Communism has failed every time. Our best efforts so far are embracing some communist ideals whilst pandering around with others.
Will we get there? Probably.
Within this era? Hell no. We’ve only just started evolving an adaption to a shrinking planet and working with neighbours. However, as you know we’re still very divided, tribalistic, and prone to taking whatever advantages we can get. This is, after all, how we got to be number 1 and millions of years of evolution can’t be stifled or changed in mere generations.
This is the realisation most people have during year 3 or 4 of the college communist phase. You accept the reality of Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm, that human nature is why we can’t have nice things…yet. I reckon around 2100–2150, after we’ve been through some more shit together and wanked another world war out of our system.
Will it last? Probably not lol.
Unironically “why didn’t Marx think of human nature lol”
Actually read a book and stop trying to sound like a smartass asserting stuff on the basis of “it feels true”.
Must be the lizard people then, huh? I mean, if human nature has had nothing to do with the outcome of Marxism’s lack of uptake in global societies and cultures- Oh wait, I’m doing it again. Just because that “feels true” is might not be so. I’m learning…
So, since that’s all a lie and I’m clearly unaware that Maxism is actually wildly successful across the globe, please, recommend a book so I can keep riding the Revelation Train.
I would like to know why people keep bringing up Karl on a comment about communism. Maybe he has works you know about which explains how they are synonymous. Any literature with that would help since everything I’ve read clearly disassociated and outlines the two, including Karl’s own writings.
I’m beginning to see why people call lemmy.world the Reddit of the fediverse
If you want capitalist propaganda you can go back to reddit lol
why not? if you’d like a more capitalist experience you can always go to reddit. don’t forget to download their shitty app that no longer has competitors.
Especially people who never lived in a communist state
Sure I’ll just go in my alt-history time travel machine and be born in a communist state. Sorry for suggesting we improve things somewhat?
You should go into your alt history time machine and realize how shitty it is living under communism. Why do you think every country bordering Russia hates them so much?
That is where I’m from, and yes we all hate russia and their stupidity
Yeah, same. It’s sad that people who don’t really know what it was like are romanticizing communism as the “solution to everything” and repeating what is essentially populist nonsense.
You don’t even need to travel in time to feel the communist spirit, just go to any post-soviet country and see the reality for yoursef.
Or just go to north korea or cuba and see how they live
This has to be the greatest troll I’ve ever seen or else I’m a filthy commie.
When you leave reddit, a corporatised and astroturfed bot farm you’re gonna get less liberal and right wing stuff that only existed to make money or exert political influence.
If you’re really upset by it you can filter lemmy.ml which is gonna be the main source of left wing posting.
If you’re really upset by it you can filter lemmy.ml which is gonna be the main source of left wing posting.
That’s true for you, anyway, because your instance is defederated from lemmygrad and hexbear.
You can also block certain users who won’t stop harping on one subject
Communism is by definition a society without a state, so nobody has ever lived in a communist state and I doubt there has ever been a communist society in recorded history.
Communism is by definition a society without a state, so nobody has ever lived in a communist state
The last stage of the Marxist evolution of communism involves the decay of state institutions through neglect, as they become redundant in a post-scarcity no-cops Utopia.
But there are a bunch of prior stages (including capitalist industrialization even!) that are neglected. And even then, the utopian end-game is routinely disputed by the subsequent generations of Leninists and Maoists who believe we will never truly escape the revolutionary cycle.
There absolutely are Already Existing Socialist states attempting to move themselves from primitive accumulation, through industrial capitalism, and into a collectively governed socialist post-scarcity society. And people absolutely are living in them. And none of them are Utopian (although the quality of life in many of these countries is exhaustively propagandized to be by degrees to be between Unbearably Hellish and FALGSC-adjacent).
The problems that these countries typically have, however, aren’t ones that armchair communists on a niche western internet platform are capable of solving. You’re not going to break the Cuban blockade. You’re not going to settle the endless territorial disputes plaguing Vietnam. You’re not going to undo the legacy of generations of apartheid in South Africa overnight. You’re not going to Make the USSR Great Again.
So maybe save yourself some angst and stop trying to tell Nicholas Maduro and Kim Jung Un how to do their jobs. Maybe worry more about why your local chapter of the DSA can’t get a teacher’s union off the ground.
You’re not going to break the Cuban blockade. You’re not going to settle the endless territorial disputes plaguing Vietnam. You’re not going to undo the legacy of generations of apartheid in South Africa overnight. You’re not going to Make the USSR Great Again.
So maybe save yourself some angst and stop trying to tell Nicholas Maduro and Kim Jung Un how to do their jobs
All these "you"s make me think that you might addressing me personally.
I make no claim to solve anything, nor how anyone should do their job.
I have provided an (incomplete) explanation as to what communism is, why it does not actually exist in practice and why therefore people commenting cannot be from a communist state.All these "you"s make me think that you might addressing me personally.
Apologies, I intended to use the Royal You and was speaking primarily to the British Crown.
I have provided an (incomplete) explanation as to what communism is, why it does not actually exist in practice and why therefore people commenting cannot be from a communist state.
A country in which the government has transitioned from primitive feudal to industrial capital and is now under a revolutionary socialist government is still communist at least in so far as its following the roadmap Marx and his peers tried to lay out two centuries ago.
If nothing else, these are communist governments in the sense that they take their governing philosophy from Marx, Lenin, and Mao (and Castro and Allende and Mandela and Ho Chi Mein and we can even throw in Fred Hampton and Rosa Luxemburg and Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim and the thousands of other notable revolutionaries if we’re being generous) in pursuit of the communist goal.
To claim otherwise would be akin to claiming you’re not a capitalist because you haven’t successfully privatized your industry. Or to claim you aren’t feudalist because you’re not in the Royal Family.
A country […] under a revolutionary socialist government is still communist
I would argue that in a world where the terms are not synonymous, socialist countries are in fact socialist, not communist.
at least in so far as its following the roadmap
Following a roadmap to some target literally means that you have not yet achieved that target.
The argument is not that their are no communists, the argument is that they have not established actual communism, therefore the states they govern are not communist states.
Whether or not they want to establish communism does not factor into it.To claim otherwise would be akin to claiming that a company on a roadmap to profitability is already profitable, while actually still losing money.
socialist countries are in fact socialist, not communist
Countries that reform their private sectors in order to adopt socialist policies are pursuing communism.
Countries that reform their socialist sectors in order to adopt privatization policies are not pursuing communism.
Following a roadmap to some target literally means that you have not yet achieved that target.
Right. You are implementing a policy that pursues a target.
Whether or not they want to establish communism does not factor into it.
“Mao wasn’t a communist in 1953 because his country hadn’t completed its first five year plan yet” is one hell of a claim.
To claim otherwise would be akin to claiming that a company on a roadmap to profitability is already profitable
It would be nutso to say Caryle Group isn’t interested in investing in profitable companies.
And yet the entire strategy of growth investing is to identify companies with strong roadmaps and lend to them at higher return rates.
So your analogy works, but not for the reason you’d expected.
“Mao wasn’t a communist in 1953 because his country hadn’t completed its first five year plan yet” is one hell of a claim.
One hell of a straw man, you mean.
At what point have I denied that people are communists?
Mao may be a communist and follow a philosophy called communism but China has not established a social order called communism as envisioned by communists.At what point have I denied that people are communists?
socialist countries are in fact socialist, not communist
Countries -> Large collections of People
Not communist -> denying that these large collections of people are communist
Mao may be a communist and follow a philosophy called communism but China has not established a social order called communism as envisioned by communists.
Uh huh.
That is at a ‘state’ level, there are still smaller level communist places to live. Like where the word ‘Commune’ comes from and what communism was derived from and attempted to expand into. There are communes all over the world. US included. There is a famous one in London, lots of large ones in Spain. They are communities that exist in their own bubble of micro economics within their larger communities of normal living. You should look it up. They are interesting and normally very appealing.
I mean, OP asked specifically why comments don’t come from
people that never lived in a communist state
So I addressed the non-existence of communist states.
True, there can be smaller communist societies but I think OP was asking more on a USSR level scale and not 12 hippies living on a farm together.
Why do you hate communism?
Nobody has ever actually done real communism on a national scale. The closest is probably the USSR, but that was a disaster because it was an authoritarian dictatorship that funneled money and power to the top. People only got token representation, the people were not actually in charge of anything, they got no real say in their leadership. Doesn’t matter that it was structured like communism says it should be, the reality of it was anything but communism.
Real communism would probably be pretty decent. There wouldn’t be too much to hate about it other than what you’d dislike in any government.
The problem is the humans running it. It’s a constant battle against power-hungry and self-serving people being in charge, just like any government, and no nation espousing communism has ever managed to prevent authoritarianism and basic kleptocratic people from settling in and running the show.
- I am not for communism or here to espouse any virtues it might have. The concept of communism certainly has appeal and presents many benefits, however the reality of implementation and human nature virtually guarantee it will never achieve its intended form.
Real communism will never work for the same reason a completely free market would never work.
Too many people are greedy and selfish.
That’s pretty much what I just said? Except you mentioned free market…
Dunno about communist unless you count the tankies which I don’t see on the main instances.
Lots of socialist stuff though.
Socialism — the dictatorship of the working-class — is the transitional mode of production between capitalism — the dictatorship of the capitalist class — and the stateless, classless mode of production that is communism. You can’t really separate the two.
Thats the communist definition of socialism. Socialism originally just referred to the leftist movement as a whole (including anarchists and dem-socs, which i guess he refers to). And is also used to refer to the concept of workers owning the means of production
The first line in Wikipedia “Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems[1] characterised by social ownership of the means of production”.
To be clear, this definition goes back to 1832, where the original inventor of the word used to define a society “based on the shared ownership of resources”. So it is not just “the communist definition” it really is the definition, it did not “originally” refer to anything else.
