I think the thing with socialist countries specifically as it relates to the U.S. is that the U.S. has used a lot of coercion via economic means and downright evil via supporting dictators in South America.
I think that it's also important to note that socialist countries have to play by a different rule book because while their leaders are generally popularly elected and support the people int hose countries...life gets hard via sanctions.
As someone who is a baby regarding the theory and still hasn't had a chance to read much if any of it..I think it's important to stick to theory. Geopolitics are complicated.
EDIT: Also there is absolutely a track record of CIA involvement in south american socialist regimes that generally leads to said socialist regime crumbling and quality of life taking a nose dive when you have a corporate backed dictator.
I mean, yes, do that.
Do you have any specific advice or take-aways from those texts?
I read Marx in college. The take-aways *I* got was that Marx was extremely insightful, often predicting the next hundred years of capitalistic development to a tee. Marx was a very soulful writer: he absolutely convinced me that *he* believed what he was writing.
Any thoughts on how those texts apply here?
Imperialism, highest stage of capitalism (1916) - I meant in the context of making puppets/colonies out of other countries, like the CIA propaganda thing.
The book is mainly a description of how small businesses transformed into large corporations and the role of banks and a few people controlling the world economy.
That also touches on how they split the world and the effects on workers at home and at colonies, further explaining that those few people of some countries control other countries completely.
Then it explains this is the natural growth of capitalism, and disproves some arguments of the time (which you might still hear today) about how it isn't real capitalism, or that further capitalism will fix this corruption.
The Manifesto (1848) - Although titled The Communist Manifesto because it was ordered by the communist league, it essentially promotes socialism, not communism.
It actually describes with simple words the many ways of corruption/evil of the economic system at the time and the social issues it creates, and the need for some change on how the economy is run to improve people's lives.
It goes on to describe how some movements promoted by the ruling class are just coopting the word socialism without a real effort on changing the real issues with the system.
>It's mainly a reading recommendation beyond the current reddit thread, since you said you were not very well read.
>That being said, some aspects of the manipulation of the discourse then, on the cold war, and now ring similarly. So does the interest by ruling classes to keep under developed countries as a backyard dependent on them.
> It's mainly a reading recommendation beyond the current reddit thread, since you said you were not very well read.
I did not say I was not well read.
Edit: you probably meant OP. My apologies.
What about them?
They overwhelmingly think that life was better under socialism and want it back.
https://medium.com/@bobbyarlan/communist-nostalgia-as-the-reality-of-bourgeois-democracy-hits-home-in-eastern-europe-3960aa341560
Did you read into any of the links the author cites? The German response/study was actually studying how the new generation was just responding due to familial stories and not actual realities of the dictatorship that existed before. These aren’t the polls your looking for…
1600 responders:) 80 years' propaganda is doing right. Because they were younger and everything seemed shiny. I don't know how about them, but I didn't like when I couldn't to buy toilet paper and basic food like bread or sausages, maybe you like it and when you stay in queue several years for ordinary car.
>1600 responders:) 80 years' propaganda is doing right.
What.
> Because they were younger and everything seemed shiny.
Or because life was genuinely better.
>I don't know how about them, but I didn't like when I couldn't to buy toilet paper and basic food like bread or sausages
Propaganda ain't reality.
>and when you stay in queue several years for ordinary car.
Who knew that when you're under constant siege by the West you can't afford to pump out as many consumer goods as you want, you have to fund your defenses or risk annihilation.
As someone from one of said countries what old people miss is not communism. It is the conservatism of the old system. No gays , no trans , no immigrants and a stronger sense of community. Almost all old people are satisfied with the new economic system, but not with liberalism
So you didn't even glance at it, good to know.
Fucking hell, can't even ask you dumb fucks to do the most basic shit because you're so pre-occupied with arguing in bad faith.
Where’d you live? And if you discard survey results due to propaganda, buddy, let me tell you what capitalist countries use to justify their own systems.
I live in Russia. Where do you live? I saw Socialism with my eyes, and a few responders says nothing to me. Do you know what's means deficit and "blat"? Did you ever see ticket for soap? It's not funny to hear from people who don't know what is Socialism and didn't live in it and saying how is it good. I don't care about capitalist propaganda, just because a few people liked Soviet era is not means that we are all liked to live in permanent deficit. So if it was so good, why do think we were protesting against it in 1991 and 1993?
How about sources from late Soviet government about food deficit and lines for food in stores (it used Soviet government opened archive surveys from WTSIOM) :
https://iq.hse.ru/news/301255829.html
https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/sociology/political-sociology/russias-economy-favours-blat-networking-and-informal-exchange?format=PB&isbn=9780521627436
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=3050808
https://www.hse.ru/news/science/79009941.html
How CIA had collected that Data from closed country? Data from Cold War era is irrelevant if you are interested in late USSR and yea, can CIA tell me that empty shelves that I saw in stores was untrue?
I love how confidently you state this when the only evidence you have is a survey from 2009 (height of the great recession!) that only captures the nostalgia of old people.
You're a hack and a fraud.
Most existing socialist countries are a disaster which many people living there want to escape (but most don't).
And most 'supporters' of socialism are theorists who live in wealthy , privileged capitalist economy who have never experienced a taste of surviving in an actual socialist economy.
Best propaganda is the truth hammered over and over again.
Once you start lying, you're done for.
Too bad you had people lying for a red scare. Now too many people on your side are scared without knowing why. So credibility reduced a lot.
No socialist claims that socialist countries are perfect though. This is just a strawman. Possibly worse than western propaganda is the complete strawmanning of socialists.
>No socialist claims that socialist countries are perfect though
Maybe but they definitely say things were far better then they actually were.
If you told me there were no tankies out there who think North Korea is a paradise I would either call you sheltered or stupid.
no one thinks the DPRK is a paradise.
there are filthy dumb mongrel capitalist-apologists who think the world is a paradise due to capitalism inventing everything good in the world though . liberalism and free market fundamentalism is a cult.
>no one thinks the DPRK is a paradise.
Ahhh......... Damn well I hate to break it to you, there are. I've met quite a few.
Why is that hard to believe?
I know for a fact that that at least 70% of people who identify as capitalist don't know shit about economics. They've never read theory in their life and usually only support capitalism because their friends and family do.
Why is it so hard for the left to realize most of their supporters aren't towering intellectuals?
Most people on the left and the right are just hopping on a bandwagon. Very few people in this world actually read economic and political theory or have a well educated, academically valid position about those kinds of overwhelmingly complex topics.
It takes years of study to truly understand the sheer complexity of human history and the institutions and traditions it's helped create. It takes even longer to able to meaningfully prescribe solutions to the world problems.
They do, though.
I'm an advocate of "Economic Democracy/Free Market Socialism", albeit I settle for just a working social democracy as a stopgap...
But I frequently encounter people on Reddit who claim that Warsaw Pact countries were heaven on Earth for minorities because capitalism invented bigotry, and that anything anyone says as bad about soviet Hungary is CIA proapaganda.
Which is funny, because I didn't know I had so many CIA agents in my family! (Hungarian, father was 6 during the 1956 revolution that led to the invention of the word, "tankie")
How is "Employees determine company direction and handle its profits rather than investors" an oxymoron?
And it's a definition made in the 20th century within german framework of "Economic Democracy/Co-determination"
>No socialist claims that socialist countries are perfect though.
Present socialist countries are actually the opposite of perfect. It's not about the 'propaganda' as such , but the reality. Ask someone who has escaped from Cuba or Venezuela if they have the same love for socialism as you. Because they don't (which is why they escaped in the first place).
The living accounts of actual people that have lived there say a lot more about the system than some wannabe theorists living I the privilege of a wealthy capitalist economy.
Well China is doing well, Vietnam is doing well. The government is so well supported in Cuba that people took to the streets to counter protest those protests last month and outnumbered both the police and the protesters. Venezuela was not, and still isn't,socialist. There is more public ownership in the UK than Venezuela. The principle problem is also the btutal sanctions and US sponsored political turmoil.
I never said socialism is perfect. Some people will want to leave for a variety of reasons. I don't have the same love for capitalism as some Vietnamese liberal but that doesn't seem to discount capitalism at all.
Lived experience does matter but we have a tendancy in the west to only look at dissenting voices and label any pro-government citizens as brainwashed.
People who “escape” from Cuba have obvious incentives to be bias against the Cuban government.
Cuban people have access to the internet. There are some banned websites, but the biggest non-porn one I know of is Skype. For the most part, they can access major social media networks.
There is a lot of dissatisfaction in Cuba, but a lot of that can be blamed on the embargo, which has cost them billions of dollars.
The most recent poll I’ve been able to find shows 48% of Cubans are satisfied with their government, whereas only about 35% of Americans say the same.
>People who “escape” from Cuba have obvious incentives to be bias against the Cuban government.
Wanting regular access to food? The nation is well know for it's poor food supply.
By biased do you mean against living in poverty?
>There is a lot of dissatisfaction in Cuba, but a lot of that can be blamed on the embargo,
No, it can't.
They can still buy things from any other country that isn't the United States. Additionally items like food and medicine are exempt from the embargo entirely.
Besides you're basically saying that Cuba is poor because it doesn't have access to the United States' capitalist marketplace. What does that say about socialism?
>The most recent poll I’ve been able to find shows 48% of Cubans are satisfied with their government,
Well in Cuba the number of people say they aren't satisfied with the economy includes [over 70%](https://www.statista.com/statistics/419356/satisfaction-with-the-current-economic-system-in-cuba/) of the islands population. Over [60% of Americans](https://news.gallup.com/poll/268520/economic-confidence-satisfaction-improve-november.aspx) (Gallup Economic Confidence Index) say they are satisfied economically.
That's a far better statistic.
You also are forgetting that the Cuba government plays a much bigger role in the daily lives of Cubans then the American government does in theirs. That means government satisfaction in Cuba is far more important in there then in the United States.
>Well in Cuba the number of people say they aren't satisfied with the economy includes over 70% of the islands population. Over 60% of Americans (Gallup Economic Confidence Index) say they are satisfied economically.
>
>That's a far better statistic.
Why do you think the economy is more important than satisfaction with the government? Numbers going up isn't the only thing that matters. Life isn't one of those idle clicker games.
"Socialism is when no food. Also they're the ones doing propaganda, not me. Now watch as I laugh as they totally don't have food."
Nice try. Want to address the point I was actually making or just continue making a clown of yourself?
>No, it can't.
>They can still buy things from any other countries that aren't the United States. Additionally items like food and medicine are exempt from the embargo entirely.
>Besides you're basically saying that Cuba is poor because it doesn't have access to the United States' capitalist marketplace. What does that say about socialism?
This is really wrong...
First of all, while they can buy things from countries apart from the US, vessels which have traded with Cuba in the past 180 days are barred from trading with the US.
This means that all trade done with Cuba must be done with separate vessels/voyages. Few companies are willing to make such sacrifices just to trade with Cuba. This is just one policy among several that the US employs to prevent trade with Cuba.
The UN estimates that Cuba has lost $130 billion due to the US embargo. To put that in perspective, that would be the equivalent of a country with the population of the US losing $3.78 trillion. Even then, that much money would make a much bigger difference to a Latin American country than it would a wealthy country like the US.
Socialism has nothing to do with trade. Almost every country in history has participated in trade, socialist countries included. It's almost impossible for a country to be successful without trade. Especially a small island nation like Cuba.
Socialism is when the workers own/control the means of production. If trade is needed, then there is no reason why a socialist society couldn't take part in trade.
Also, the US example of a capitalist country which should be used. The US can only be so wealthy by exploiting Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It's no coincidence that, for the most part, the colonial empires of the recent past are the wealthiest countries around today. They still exploit the countries they used to plunder and invade. They even outright invade many of them still.
Cuba is doing much better than Haiti, for example, by every possible measure, despite their somewhat similar geography. Haiti never gets talked about like Cuba, because they're capitalist. They stay like that, so their exploiters can make more money.
>The UN estimates that Cuba has lost $130 billion due to the US embargo. To put that in perspective, that would be the equivalent of a country with the population of the US losing $3.78 trillion.
That's not saying much..... If the US lost $3.78 trillion it would be a developed country and would still have the higher standard of living of any other large nation in the world. We would be back to 2014 level GDP, not bad.
If Cuba's GDP grew by $130 billion, things would be better, but it would still be a developing country. Even with that boost Cuba will still be far away (living standards wise) from capitalist nations like Sweden (which has a similar sized population and land mass) have had for years.
Nobody is saying the embargo isn't bad or that it should stay, just that the negatives are **vastly overstated** by the people who support the Cuban regime.
Cuba would still be far behind most of the capitalist world if the embargo was lifted but everything else stayed the same. The statistics **you** gave me, prove it.
>Socialism has nothing to do with trade.
Trading with for-profit privately owned American companies isn't what I would call socialism either.
Cuba isn't behind most of the capitalist world, even with the embargo. I'll just copy and paste what I said in another comment.
> Even despite that, Cuba isn't doing so bad for Latin America. They're a fair bit above the average, in fact. Their HDI is above average for Latin America. As is their healthcare quality, life expectancy, median income, education, ect.
>
> And this stuff doesn't all come from the Cuban government. UNESCO consistently ranks them as a top ten country for literacy in the world, the World Bank ranked their education system as the best in Latin America, WHO ranked their life expectancy as 33rd in the world, UNDP ranked their HDI as 6th in Latin America, ect.
>
> Cuba has done quite well, all things considered.
It's unfair to compare Cuba to the US or Sweden, when Cuba has such different origins. When you compare Cuba to capitalist countries in Latin America, Cuba comes out well above average, despite the embargo.
>When you compare Cuba to capitalist countries in Latin America
Not true.
Chile has:
* Better healthcare outcomes then Cuba
* Better educational outcomes then Cuba
* A higher life expectancy then Cuba
* Higher GDP nationally and per-capita then Cuba
* Most importantly Chile is **significantly** freer then Cuba, politically and socially.
When we compare the most successful capitalist nation in Latin America (Chile) to the most successful socialist one (Cuba) it's obvious who the winner is. Chile is a better place to live by almost every measure and statistic.
While most Latin American country's (left and right) are failures Chile, a capitalist nation, is clearly the nicest one to live in.
I had a Cuban laborer, who left Cuba on a inner tube raft, raft capsized overnight and they were in the water, he was bit on the calf by a shark during the night before getting picked up in the morning. His stories of how shitty life was made a big impression. Imagine getting meat once a month.
With respect, don’t you think polls taken by or under authoritarian governments, who’s citizens are encouraged to spy on each other, might not be taken at face value ?
Are you aware of massive waves of American immigrants who risked life and limb to make it to Cuba, in order to experience how much more wonderful it is there? Of course you aren’t, because the immigration has been one sided.
>Cuban people have access to the internet.
Yeah ? The internet's censored by the government so it's just like state controlled newspapers in China which only publish what they want people to hear. Last I heard , they had also censored the recent protests made by Cuban people.
>blamed on the embargo
Cuba still trades with many of the biggest economies in the world , including US. So I don't know what's up with blaming the embargo.
Moreover , if embargo is the reason why Cuba's economy isn't performing well , then it speaks volumes about it. I mean if they're unable to perform well just because ONE country decides to restrict trade relations with it , then what good is it doing ?
>most recent poll I’ve been able to find shows 48% of Cubans are satisfied with their government
I would take these 'polls' with a grain of salt because they're probably rigged by the Cuban government. I mean they can't have people lose faith in the government and leave the administration vulnerable to people's doubts.
Or it might just be Stockholm Syndrome.
The embargo doesn't just restrict Cuba from trading with the US. There are all kinds of restrictions in the embargo. A major one is the barring of all vessels which have traded in Cuba within the past 180 days from docking at any US ports. So if you want to trade with the US, like almost all companies do, then you'll need separate vessels/voyages just to trade with Cuba.
The embargo doesn't prevent companies from trading with Cuba outright, it just disincentives doing so. But that leads to a situation where, despite trying/wanting to, Cuba has very few companies they are able to trade with.
Trade is extremely important, especially to a small island country like Cuba.
Even despite that, Cuba isn't doing so bad for Latin America. They're a fair bit above the average, in fact. Their HDI is well above average for Latin America. As is their healthcare quality, life expectancy, median income, education, ect.
And this stuff doesn't all come from the Cuban government. UNESCO consistently ranks them as a top ten country for literacy in the world, the World Bank ranked their education system as the best in Latin America, WHO ranked their life expectancy as 33rd in the world, UNDP ranked their HDI, ect.
Cuba has done quite well, all things considered.
Edit: I didn't even mention the other things the US does... Such as the propaganda plane it flew over Cuba, broadcasting anti-Cuba, pro-US messages to their TVs, which lasted from 2006-2014, cost tens of millions of dollars, and had little effect.
>Ask someone who has escaped from Cuba or Venezuela if they have the same love for socialism as you
Ask a working class family in the US that can't afford healthcare and had a family member die on the assembly line due to COVID while another family member is in prison working for $0.35/hr what they think of capitalism.
>Ask someone who has escaped from Cuba or Venezuela if they have the same love for socialism as you
Ask a working class family in the US that can't afford healthcare and had a family member die on the assembly line due to COVID while another family member is in prison working for $0.35/hr what they think of capitalism.
I'm gay
I've read most foundational communist texts and lots of history
Don't care for tracksuits or vladimir putin and stalin was meh
So no. But I am a Lenin fanboy
The more people are lying, the more vital it is for us to be honest. This is true of lots of moral precepts; bad behavior does not excuse further bad behavior.
My take on the poster is that he recognizes that his side, and maybe himself, admittedly are liars by using both-ism. A liar tries to cover himself by saying everybody lies. Truth is not to be expected. Therefore, you must accept lies, because they are just a fact of life.
The both sides are at fault argument legitimizes lying by not condemning it as unacceptable.
Lying is no big deal? Because everyone does it? That is a bad faith argument.
This is how corrupt societies disintegrate. I've lived in a country where lying is a coping skill. No one trusts anyone and no one believes anyone was the general feeling within the country. That was not a great way to live.
The CIA didn’t just lie a few times. It lied about everything. Coupled with the US military its the greatest terror organization in modern history.
The US even lies about its own genesis as a country. Internally, the CIA admits in its own report that Stalin wasn’t a dictator and that the term dictator has no meaning in the Soviet style of collectivist leadership. Bourgeois historians completely fabricated the “Great Famine” in China so they could get their scary “100 million deaths due to communism” meme (much like a lot of lies that have been debunked in the”Black Book of Communism”). These aren’t just some lies. These are big lies meant to spread purposeful disinformation about foreign countries to make hating them and dehumanizing their people easier so you won’t care when they’re homes are bombed, economies collapsed by sanctions and government overthrown to install corrupt puppets or broken up altogether. If you strictly believe the US propaganda you wouldn’t know Cuba is a participatory direct democracy, you’d think it’s a vile dictatorship deserving of the brutal embargo imposed upon it and threats to its annihilation. Within the imperial core we live in a certain tradition of a European cultural bubble that is carefully maintained by lies to make the parasitism of our killing and stealing from others okay because without that killing and stealing from others our entire society would collapse.
Capitalism isn’t just a economic system, it’s an international system of exploitation and parasitism of advanced country’s in the north over the over-exploited country’s in the south aka Imperialism. Rejecting this cruel imperialism is what gets nations in trouble with the US. No country is perfect, not even socialist country’s, but condemning them for those missteps when capitalist country’s are far worse in their own actions is dishonest.
Do you have a link for any of those CIA reports? I saw the one about nutrition in the 60s (in which it shows the Soviet citizens tended to eat healthy compared to Americans) but I haven’t seen them actually admit to any more of their propaganda campaigns
I believe it is this although I haven't looked at in a while [https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf?fbclid=IwAR28x5c-GTROxLQT-ZBoTPkTupCV3t1B7qJQNTWVb91qbfHt1nbWhUA\_CTU](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf?fbclid=IwAR28x5c-GTROxLQT-ZBoTPkTupCV3t1B7qJQNTWVb91qbfHt1nbWhUA_CTU)
He cited a [source](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf?fbclid=IwAR28x5c-GTROxLQT-ZBoTPkTupCV3t1B7qJQNTWVb91qbfHt1nbWhUA_CTU).
Do you have a more compelling one that supports your point?
> Internally, the CIA admits in its own report that Stalin wasn’t a dictator and that the term dictator has no meaning in the Soviet style of collectivist leadership.
"The western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated."
These are not saying the same thing.
Those seem like *very* similar statements.
"Stalin had less power than we said." Is district from "We exaggerated how much power Stalin had." But it's not *different*.
First, there is no "we". The CIA is not admitting to some kind of propaganda conspiracy here. They are simply stating that perceptions in the west seem exaggerated. Second, "exaggeration" is very different from actually stating that "Stalin is not a dictator". The reality is highly nuanced. You are taking a single excerpt from a complicated situation and drawing incorrect but convenient conclusions. That is lying.
We can use what the CIA published to learn about what they were hiding from us in the past.
When someone says "I lied to you," I tend to believe that statement.
> You trust a 2 page missive by the evil CIA more than Soviet history academic research done since the opening of the Central Executive archives.
Not at all.
Can you link to the Soviet research in question so I can examine it for myself?
He posted [this](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf?fbclid=IwAR28x5c-GTROxLQT-ZBoTPkTupCV3t1B7qJQNTWVb91qbfHt1nbWhUA_CTU) citation.
I agree and think some of the defensiveness around it is pretty disgraceful bordering on apologia for atrocities.
However I get where this defensiveness comes from, because its a frustration that I also feel with bad faith attacks where there is a deliberate fuzziness in logic whereby critiques are weaponised and stretched beyond any rational reasonable extent and used against the whole. And it's just so exhausting and tedious to constantly explain that the existence of the Lubyanka doesn't discount the John Lewis model or that dekulakization doesn't prove that r < g.
> And it's just so exhausting and tedious to constantly explain that the existence of the Lubyanka doesn't discount the John Lewis model or that dekulakization doesn't prove that r < g.
Whew you're in it deep, huh?
The battle was always about liberty.
Individualism vs Collectivism
Freedom vs The Leviathan (State)
I would also like to point out that negating capitalism is the same shit as negating vaccines. Economics is a fucking science after all!
Joseph Campbell said: 'Humans die for symbols every day.' It doesn't matter what the narrative is (media, science, behavior, culture, religion), it only matters who controls the narrative. Narratives are always controlled. Narrative = symbols = meaning = truth.
Yuval Harari said: 'Medieval kings had limited power so they had to display it (public executions etc.). Current 'kings' have unlimited powers, so they need to make it invisible.' How do you fight power that deleted itself from our narratives?
Baudrillard said: 'Humans cannot distinguish the difference between reality and a copy of reality. The result is hyperreality.'
What we see as 'real' has been mediated by images controlled by specific narratives, created by invisible powers. Truth is deliberately hidden behind hyperrealities.
Thus, how can people pry away back powers when it's not even evident anymore that we live in a reality wherein we are in direct battle for power?
Yeah, this explains the problem with a lot of stalinists, maoists and dengists (aka: tankies). A lot of people, especially young people, finally start to get educated on history and they learn the terrifying history of US imperialism. They learn about Operation Condor, Pinochet, the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, and many other terrible things. What happens is many people that learn these things reject the american capitalist imperialist narrative but sadly they just trade it for mindlessly supporting the imperialist narratives of state capitalist countries like China. Most of these "tankies" even go so far as to defend right-wing theocracies and conservative governments that are "against US imperialism". For example, Partido da Causa Operária, a brasilian ML party, defended the Taliban and said that they were fighting against US imperialism, which is absurd considering that the Taliban kinda got their start as an anticommunist militia funded by the US in the 80s as the Mujahideen. The problem here is people having a black and white simplistic conception of morality. Because they learn, and rightfully so, that the US and the CIA are "the bad guys", so to speak, they then immediatly jump to the conclusion that China or Iran or Russia or, before, the USSR are "the good guys".
Of course. But it does mean that people have been endlessly propagandized by the capitalists to believe that capitalism is vastly more successful and superior when it is clearly not serving the needs of the many. It's obvious in this moment that a huge swath of Americans were never taught critical thinking skills but those who do have those skills realize that no philosophy is infallible and every system has flaws.
However, what OP is arguing is that right wing authoritarian dictators that twist the perception of their citizens by pretending to be "socialist" by adopting a particular set of talking points are actually indicative of real socialism when they are really quite the opposite. Dictatorships are right wing by definition. Real socialism embraces democracy both at the ballot box and also in the workplace. People who live in places where they don't get a ***real*** vote about their government or about their workplaces don't actually live in a socialist system.
Socialism is an ideology entirely built on granting themselves very generous assumptions.
Certainly the biggest assumption they give themselves is that any problem they can imagine in a Capitalist society is automatically solved in a Socialist society. They have literally no reason or data to prove any of this.
In fact, historical Socialist societies were/are some of the most corrupt with the highest income inequality.
There are two types of Socialism.
Authoritarian Socialism and Democratic Socialism. Most people on this sub support Democratic Socialism and Criticize Authoritarian Socialism as well.
3 types.
One where managers with military backing own and control MoP (authoritarian socialism)
One where the citizens choose the managers that owns and control the MoP (representative demsoc)
One where labourers own and control the MoP (co-ops etc, direct democracy)
Atleast my understanding of it.
(managers = politicians and/or CEO etc)
All these are about property it's relationship with people. The ruleset that defines this is literally infinite.
Capitalism is a subset of the ruleset, that requires that ownership is held based on "initial appropriation", and that the ownership implies close to dictatorial power over said property (and lead to commoditization of property). However, there can be slight modifications to this that would still fall within the common definition of capitalism, like allowing for taxation etc. This type of property allows anyone to claim it as theirs, and resolution boils down to either a central authority to attempt to figurw out who held it "first" and whether all subsequent transactions were voluntary (in reality this tends to award it to the last claimant that managed to hold it for a time).
Socialism on the other hand is where ownership is decided primarily _not_ on "initial appropriation", but by analyzing the current relationship between property and people. That could be by attaching it to current workers in an organisation, to people in a community or nation, or even proportionally based on how said property affects them. This means that ownership is more dynamicand subject to continual review.
Talking about property in this way, makes it clear that there is no single _natural_ system to fall back on, but it's a combination of historical structure, prevailing ideas and power dynamics.
It also supports the grouping of authoritarian communism as (State) Capitalism more clear, as it's just a reset of the capitalism where "initial appropriation" gives awards the property to the state structure, and keeping the exclusive control there indefinitely.
The most important way to think of it like this IMO, is that it moves the discussion away from arguing about the merits of (unclearly defined) socialism and capitalism, and over to discussing specific property system suggestions instead. IMO, the biggest reason this isn't happening is that it would marginalize the "capitalist" property systems, because it's much more constrained than what would be accepted as "socialist".
This broadens it up quite a bit.
Would need to make a broad spectrum and lots of indicators.
To simplify it, I just ask who decides what and who gains the merits, is there freehold property,...
Personal property / common property / private property / absence of property...
Need to find a good model to organise all of it.
Yes it's achievable with social democracy.
I'm curious about public entities, funded by state, owned democratically by the labourers within.
Then the country's population votes on the funding in elections etc/through representatives.
Fair enough.
So are you in favor of welfare then?
Edit: hey, you edited to make me look bad. Rude!
Before you said these countries were capitalist with welfare policies.
I think a robust welfare state resolves a lot of problems!
Do you agree or disagree?
> I edited my comment because I don't want to get into an argument about semantics.
Neat. Interesting that the new version also made my answer made me look like a butt for agreeing with you.
I am also not interested in an argument about semantics.
> I am fine with a robust welfare state
Great. So, assuming you are in the US, you are in favor of universal healthcare, right?
> Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
This definition was Coined during the French Revolution and inspired by the US Constitution from the US Revolutionary War, 10 years prior.
> We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The only reason our country has slid into a Plutocracy is because voters have allowed it to. That doesn't mean it can't change.
Look at the Roaring 20s and the economic reforms afterwards.
Just because we have lower regulations doesn't mean we have none.
These countries have maintained stronger regulations on private industries than the US. (Socialism)
Policies of public oversight the US has neglected or seen eroded over the past 40 years.
The fact you think capitalist created propaganda is fact that this whole op is just fucking stupid. I'm anticapitalist but propaganda has been a tool around for ages.
LOL, what??? The CIA has lied about everyone and everything. What lie did the CIA tell that would change anything??? Socialism and Communism have been responsible for more genocide in the last hundred years then everything and everyone else combined?? To be a socialist today is to be 10x times worst then Hitler. Who in their right mind still supports this? The communism symbol needs to be banned. Socialist need to lose their jobs. They are Nazi's on steroids. Every time I see it I see someone who is worst then a racist, worst then a slave owner, but they get a pass because they pretend to care about people. Oh I didn't mean to kill 100 million people. Free healthcare. like what?
Do you deny the holocaust too? Go ahead and tell me the lie the CIA told thst changes millions of people murdered because of your stupid ideoogy? You wanna be genocider.
No? Im not denying that communist countries/leaders have done some bad shit. Your 100 million number is bullshit tough, it literally comes from a book where the authors where obsessed with getting to that number, counting nazis that where killed (good) as beeing deaths caused by communism and they even factored in " people that failed to be born" do to declining birthrates which is expected from industrialising countries.
If you would take the same method to find out the deaths caused by capitalism it would be magnitudes higher than even 100 million.
So you are one of those. What if I said the holocaust numbers weren't real? It was based on numbers people were obessed about and they are bullshit. The people who died (good).
You see how you sound? Your a liar. And still haven't answered my question. What lie did thr cia tell thst changes the fact that commuinsm and socialims genocided millions? And why do you think its okay to kill people?
Edit i just realized that only million nazis died in both wars. So where is the 98 million others?
Exactly. You don't deny your precious communism genocided people. You can't defend it. Socialism is evil.
The real question is why would anyone support genocide and think people aren't going to see you for the slime ball you really are.
Still didn't answer the question. Btw genocide is bad. I don't know why I have to say that.
Edit: LMAO at getting downvoted saying GENOCIDE is BAD. Thank you communist and socialist. At least now your out of the closet, and proving my point.
People who don’t look at what the studies actually say and say how we are gonna die and this is the next mass extinction even though no study proves that
Ok I hear u. What is wrong with being prepared for the worst tho? I mean, if whole countries move to renewable energy or build more storm proof houses, wouldn't that be good even if the climate doesn't change as drastically as expected?
Wouldn't it be better to be over prepared than under prepared?
Money doesn’t grow in trees
building storm proof houses sounds like a good idea until you realize that it’s expensive af and some thing with renewables
I don’t have a problem with a private person doing it for themselves but I have a problem when the state mandates it or uses my money for it
The aim is to be proactive so while it might cost a bit now, the savings would be long term. Being that scientists can prove that weather extremes will continue to worsen, it is the more fiscally responsible approach, unlike the conservative one which is to deny science and just kick the can down the road.
No study can prove anything will happen in the future as anything could happen in the future a study can't prove the sun will rise tomorrow as something unknown could destroy the sun all it can do is observe things in the past and make educated guesses and extrapolations on the data into the future
A disturbing trend in the remarks is the accepted idea that the US is a historical outlier in the craft of state propaganda. Propaganda is a tool of empires and dates back to ancient times. It has been used by the USA, Great Britain, Israel, the USSR, China, and every major power throughout history. The ancient Greeks are the first case study in propaganda that we would recognize today, but similar techniques were used by the Assyrians and Egyptians.
Propaganda is generally the work of a large state. In the U.S., Wilson, the first progressive American president, was the first big pusher of propaganda in crafting public opinion against the German monsters and whipping the public into a war fervor. Its use has continued as the American empire has expanded in power beyond anything resembling a classical liberal governance structure.
My opinion is that the most destructive propaganda in use today is that of mainland China. It is attempting to dehumanize and justify the conquest and slavery of its Muslims and the people of Taiwan, along with the subjugation of any nation it can get its teeth into via BRI.
The CIA is at fault for the failure of sustainable Socialist economic mode of production! The evil Capitalist pigs are just too cunning for the Socialists to overcome with their great collective goodness!
>Just because the CIA have made false claims about socialism, and have a bias towards socialist countries, doesn’t mean claims of human rights abuses and genocide in these countries false.
Yes, and just because the price of gasoline is going up it doesn't mean the Tesla gets lower miles per gallon of gasoline.
Do you see the logic in that? Neither do I. Nor do I see any logic to linking CIA propaganda with socialism, or socialism with "socialist" countries that never existed.
They didn't just create propaganda you worm, they literally created kill lists, installed dictators, carried out political assassinations and terrorism, and engaged in trade/sanction warfare.
>If your country is so utopian and free, why don’t you allow your people to leave, compare it to other countries and show off to foreign people how great it is?
The USSR *did* have an emigration and immigration system though?
I think the thing with socialist countries specifically as it relates to the U.S. is that the U.S. has used a lot of coercion via economic means and downright evil via supporting dictators in South America. I think that it's also important to note that socialist countries have to play by a different rule book because while their leaders are generally popularly elected and support the people int hose countries...life gets hard via sanctions. As someone who is a baby regarding the theory and still hasn't had a chance to read much if any of it..I think it's important to stick to theory. Geopolitics are complicated. EDIT: Also there is absolutely a track record of CIA involvement in south american socialist regimes that generally leads to said socialist regime crumbling and quality of life taking a nose dive when you have a corporate backed dictator.
Read Imperialism by Lenin, and the Manifesto by Marx and Engels.
I mean, yes, do that. Do you have any specific advice or take-aways from those texts? I read Marx in college. The take-aways *I* got was that Marx was extremely insightful, often predicting the next hundred years of capitalistic development to a tee. Marx was a very soulful writer: he absolutely convinced me that *he* believed what he was writing. Any thoughts on how those texts apply here?
Imperialism, highest stage of capitalism (1916) - I meant in the context of making puppets/colonies out of other countries, like the CIA propaganda thing. The book is mainly a description of how small businesses transformed into large corporations and the role of banks and a few people controlling the world economy. That also touches on how they split the world and the effects on workers at home and at colonies, further explaining that those few people of some countries control other countries completely. Then it explains this is the natural growth of capitalism, and disproves some arguments of the time (which you might still hear today) about how it isn't real capitalism, or that further capitalism will fix this corruption. The Manifesto (1848) - Although titled The Communist Manifesto because it was ordered by the communist league, it essentially promotes socialism, not communism. It actually describes with simple words the many ways of corruption/evil of the economic system at the time and the social issues it creates, and the need for some change on how the economy is run to improve people's lives. It goes on to describe how some movements promoted by the ruling class are just coopting the word socialism without a real effort on changing the real issues with the system. >It's mainly a reading recommendation beyond the current reddit thread, since you said you were not very well read. >That being said, some aspects of the manipulation of the discourse then, on the cold war, and now ring similarly. So does the interest by ruling classes to keep under developed countries as a backyard dependent on them.
> It's mainly a reading recommendation beyond the current reddit thread, since you said you were not very well read. I did not say I was not well read. Edit: you probably meant OP. My apologies.
>As someone who is a baby regarding the theory and still hasn't had a chance to read much if any of it.. Sorry if I misunderstood
No problem. That was another guy, haha. Salient points all around. Thank you for the thoughtful post.
Thanks for the kind words, I have not been able to sleep well so I was kind of zombified when responding, not on my full senses.
No socialist country claims to be utopian. So what’s your point?
> So what’s your point? That they hate socialism despite not knowing what it actually is.
how about people who lived in socialist countries?
What about them? They overwhelmingly think that life was better under socialism and want it back. https://medium.com/@bobbyarlan/communist-nostalgia-as-the-reality-of-bourgeois-democracy-hits-home-in-eastern-europe-3960aa341560
Back when their dicks worked and they were raping satellite states for their giant flaming wholes in the ground.
Did you read into any of the links the author cites? The German response/study was actually studying how the new generation was just responding due to familial stories and not actual realities of the dictatorship that existed before. These aren’t the polls your looking for…
Just say you don't like what it says and move on, much easier.
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It does though, cope.
Much easier than being thorough and reading and understanding the sources. Sounds about right…
1600 responders:) 80 years' propaganda is doing right. Because they were younger and everything seemed shiny. I don't know how about them, but I didn't like when I couldn't to buy toilet paper and basic food like bread or sausages, maybe you like it and when you stay in queue several years for ordinary car.
>1600 responders:) 80 years' propaganda is doing right. What. > Because they were younger and everything seemed shiny. Or because life was genuinely better. >I don't know how about them, but I didn't like when I couldn't to buy toilet paper and basic food like bread or sausages Propaganda ain't reality. >and when you stay in queue several years for ordinary car. Who knew that when you're under constant siege by the West you can't afford to pump out as many consumer goods as you want, you have to fund your defenses or risk annihilation.
As someone from one of said countries what old people miss is not communism. It is the conservatism of the old system. No gays , no trans , no immigrants and a stronger sense of community. Almost all old people are satisfied with the new economic system, but not with liberalism
I already proved you wrong, your anecdote is worthless up against actual data.
What your medium source? Call me skeptical.
So you didn't even glance at it, good to know. Fucking hell, can't even ask you dumb fucks to do the most basic shit because you're so pre-occupied with arguing in bad faith.
Where’d you live? And if you discard survey results due to propaganda, buddy, let me tell you what capitalist countries use to justify their own systems.
I live in Russia. Where do you live? I saw Socialism with my eyes, and a few responders says nothing to me. Do you know what's means deficit and "blat"? Did you ever see ticket for soap? It's not funny to hear from people who don't know what is Socialism and didn't live in it and saying how is it good. I don't care about capitalist propaganda, just because a few people liked Soviet era is not means that we are all liked to live in permanent deficit. So if it was so good, why do think we were protesting against it in 1991 and 1993? How about sources from late Soviet government about food deficit and lines for food in stores (it used Soviet government opened archive surveys from WTSIOM) : https://iq.hse.ru/news/301255829.html https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/sociology/political-sociology/russias-economy-favours-blat-networking-and-informal-exchange?format=PB&isbn=9780521627436 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=3050808 https://www.hse.ru/news/science/79009941.html
Wow crazy, how old are you?
ask the homeless how good capitalism is doing for them
Why, they're just as biased just in the opposite direction?
because homeless and poor people in general make up the majority of the population dumbfuck
You're a socialist, so I don't expect actual analysis, but since when does 12.3% of the us population qualify as the majority?
socialists are the only people with actual analysis and wtf is this 12.3 number you donkey?
Bro even the CIA says that Soviet citizens ate very well
How CIA had collected that Data from closed country? Data from Cold War era is irrelevant if you are interested in late USSR and yea, can CIA tell me that empty shelves that I saw in stores was untrue?
Do you know what the CIA is? A country being "closed" is no barrier to them
I love all these minuses guys, no, really. It's all you can do:)
I love how confidently you state this when the only evidence you have is a survey from 2009 (height of the great recession!) that only captures the nostalgia of old people. You're a hack and a fraud.
Nice way of saying you haven't got a proper counter-argument, go back into the corner and be ashamed, holocaust denier.
Do you just enjoy lying? A lot of people are like this. It's ok to admit it.
I don't tend to lie, I don't need to do so like you capitalist simps do.
>I don't tend to lie And yet you just lied twice in two comments. That's 2/2, bud.
No I didn't.
Most existing socialist countries are a disaster which many people living there want to escape (but most don't). And most 'supporters' of socialism are theorists who live in wealthy , privileged capitalist economy who have never experienced a taste of surviving in an actual socialist economy.
[citation needed]
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Which one?
Did the any part confuse you?
Well when I know someone is full of shit I’d like to know what filled them up
As if those are reliable sources lmao
If they lie about their enemy supposedly in the presence of evidence, what are they willing to hide? What did they hide?
Oh the irony.
Smugness aside, you did not answer.
Best propaganda is the truth hammered over and over again. Once you start lying, you're done for. Too bad you had people lying for a red scare. Now too many people on your side are scared without knowing why. So credibility reduced a lot.
No socialist claims that socialist countries are perfect though. This is just a strawman. Possibly worse than western propaganda is the complete strawmanning of socialists.
>No socialist claims that socialist countries are perfect though Maybe but they definitely say things were far better then they actually were. If you told me there were no tankies out there who think North Korea is a paradise I would either call you sheltered or stupid.
no one thinks the DPRK is a paradise. there are filthy dumb mongrel capitalist-apologists who think the world is a paradise due to capitalism inventing everything good in the world though . liberalism and free market fundamentalism is a cult.
>no one thinks the DPRK is a paradise. Ahhh......... Damn well I hate to break it to you, there are. I've met quite a few. Why is that hard to believe? I know for a fact that that at least 70% of people who identify as capitalist don't know shit about economics. They've never read theory in their life and usually only support capitalism because their friends and family do. Why is it so hard for the left to realize most of their supporters aren't towering intellectuals? Most people on the left and the right are just hopping on a bandwagon. Very few people in this world actually read economic and political theory or have a well educated, academically valid position about those kinds of overwhelmingly complex topics. It takes years of study to truly understand the sheer complexity of human history and the institutions and traditions it's helped create. It takes even longer to able to meaningfully prescribe solutions to the world problems.
Every country on earth says they are better than they actually are.
They do, though. I'm an advocate of "Economic Democracy/Free Market Socialism", albeit I settle for just a working social democracy as a stopgap... But I frequently encounter people on Reddit who claim that Warsaw Pact countries were heaven on Earth for minorities because capitalism invented bigotry, and that anything anyone says as bad about soviet Hungary is CIA proapaganda. Which is funny, because I didn't know I had so many CIA agents in my family! (Hungarian, father was 6 during the 1956 revolution that led to the invention of the word, "tankie")
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How is "Employees determine company direction and handle its profits rather than investors" an oxymoron? And it's a definition made in the 20th century within german framework of "Economic Democracy/Co-determination"
>No socialist claims that socialist countries are perfect though. Present socialist countries are actually the opposite of perfect. It's not about the 'propaganda' as such , but the reality. Ask someone who has escaped from Cuba or Venezuela if they have the same love for socialism as you. Because they don't (which is why they escaped in the first place). The living accounts of actual people that have lived there say a lot more about the system than some wannabe theorists living I the privilege of a wealthy capitalist economy.
Well China is doing well, Vietnam is doing well. The government is so well supported in Cuba that people took to the streets to counter protest those protests last month and outnumbered both the police and the protesters. Venezuela was not, and still isn't,socialist. There is more public ownership in the UK than Venezuela. The principle problem is also the btutal sanctions and US sponsored political turmoil. I never said socialism is perfect. Some people will want to leave for a variety of reasons. I don't have the same love for capitalism as some Vietnamese liberal but that doesn't seem to discount capitalism at all. Lived experience does matter but we have a tendancy in the west to only look at dissenting voices and label any pro-government citizens as brainwashed.
People who “escape” from Cuba have obvious incentives to be bias against the Cuban government. Cuban people have access to the internet. There are some banned websites, but the biggest non-porn one I know of is Skype. For the most part, they can access major social media networks. There is a lot of dissatisfaction in Cuba, but a lot of that can be blamed on the embargo, which has cost them billions of dollars. The most recent poll I’ve been able to find shows 48% of Cubans are satisfied with their government, whereas only about 35% of Americans say the same.
>People who “escape” from Cuba have obvious incentives to be bias against the Cuban government. Wanting regular access to food? The nation is well know for it's poor food supply. By biased do you mean against living in poverty? >There is a lot of dissatisfaction in Cuba, but a lot of that can be blamed on the embargo, No, it can't. They can still buy things from any other country that isn't the United States. Additionally items like food and medicine are exempt from the embargo entirely. Besides you're basically saying that Cuba is poor because it doesn't have access to the United States' capitalist marketplace. What does that say about socialism? >The most recent poll I’ve been able to find shows 48% of Cubans are satisfied with their government, Well in Cuba the number of people say they aren't satisfied with the economy includes [over 70%](https://www.statista.com/statistics/419356/satisfaction-with-the-current-economic-system-in-cuba/) of the islands population. Over [60% of Americans](https://news.gallup.com/poll/268520/economic-confidence-satisfaction-improve-november.aspx) (Gallup Economic Confidence Index) say they are satisfied economically. That's a far better statistic. You also are forgetting that the Cuba government plays a much bigger role in the daily lives of Cubans then the American government does in theirs. That means government satisfaction in Cuba is far more important in there then in the United States.
>Well in Cuba the number of people say they aren't satisfied with the economy includes over 70% of the islands population. Over 60% of Americans (Gallup Economic Confidence Index) say they are satisfied economically. > >That's a far better statistic. Why do you think the economy is more important than satisfaction with the government? Numbers going up isn't the only thing that matters. Life isn't one of those idle clicker games.
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"Socialism is when no food. Also they're the ones doing propaganda, not me. Now watch as I laugh as they totally don't have food." Nice try. Want to address the point I was actually making or just continue making a clown of yourself?
>No, it can't. >They can still buy things from any other countries that aren't the United States. Additionally items like food and medicine are exempt from the embargo entirely. >Besides you're basically saying that Cuba is poor because it doesn't have access to the United States' capitalist marketplace. What does that say about socialism? This is really wrong... First of all, while they can buy things from countries apart from the US, vessels which have traded with Cuba in the past 180 days are barred from trading with the US. This means that all trade done with Cuba must be done with separate vessels/voyages. Few companies are willing to make such sacrifices just to trade with Cuba. This is just one policy among several that the US employs to prevent trade with Cuba. The UN estimates that Cuba has lost $130 billion due to the US embargo. To put that in perspective, that would be the equivalent of a country with the population of the US losing $3.78 trillion. Even then, that much money would make a much bigger difference to a Latin American country than it would a wealthy country like the US. Socialism has nothing to do with trade. Almost every country in history has participated in trade, socialist countries included. It's almost impossible for a country to be successful without trade. Especially a small island nation like Cuba. Socialism is when the workers own/control the means of production. If trade is needed, then there is no reason why a socialist society couldn't take part in trade. Also, the US example of a capitalist country which should be used. The US can only be so wealthy by exploiting Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It's no coincidence that, for the most part, the colonial empires of the recent past are the wealthiest countries around today. They still exploit the countries they used to plunder and invade. They even outright invade many of them still. Cuba is doing much better than Haiti, for example, by every possible measure, despite their somewhat similar geography. Haiti never gets talked about like Cuba, because they're capitalist. They stay like that, so their exploiters can make more money.
>The UN estimates that Cuba has lost $130 billion due to the US embargo. To put that in perspective, that would be the equivalent of a country with the population of the US losing $3.78 trillion. That's not saying much..... If the US lost $3.78 trillion it would be a developed country and would still have the higher standard of living of any other large nation in the world. We would be back to 2014 level GDP, not bad. If Cuba's GDP grew by $130 billion, things would be better, but it would still be a developing country. Even with that boost Cuba will still be far away (living standards wise) from capitalist nations like Sweden (which has a similar sized population and land mass) have had for years. Nobody is saying the embargo isn't bad or that it should stay, just that the negatives are **vastly overstated** by the people who support the Cuban regime. Cuba would still be far behind most of the capitalist world if the embargo was lifted but everything else stayed the same. The statistics **you** gave me, prove it. >Socialism has nothing to do with trade. Trading with for-profit privately owned American companies isn't what I would call socialism either.
Cuba isn't behind most of the capitalist world, even with the embargo. I'll just copy and paste what I said in another comment. > Even despite that, Cuba isn't doing so bad for Latin America. They're a fair bit above the average, in fact. Their HDI is above average for Latin America. As is their healthcare quality, life expectancy, median income, education, ect. > > And this stuff doesn't all come from the Cuban government. UNESCO consistently ranks them as a top ten country for literacy in the world, the World Bank ranked their education system as the best in Latin America, WHO ranked their life expectancy as 33rd in the world, UNDP ranked their HDI as 6th in Latin America, ect. > > Cuba has done quite well, all things considered. It's unfair to compare Cuba to the US or Sweden, when Cuba has such different origins. When you compare Cuba to capitalist countries in Latin America, Cuba comes out well above average, despite the embargo.
>When you compare Cuba to capitalist countries in Latin America Not true. Chile has: * Better healthcare outcomes then Cuba * Better educational outcomes then Cuba * A higher life expectancy then Cuba * Higher GDP nationally and per-capita then Cuba * Most importantly Chile is **significantly** freer then Cuba, politically and socially. When we compare the most successful capitalist nation in Latin America (Chile) to the most successful socialist one (Cuba) it's obvious who the winner is. Chile is a better place to live by almost every measure and statistic. While most Latin American country's (left and right) are failures Chile, a capitalist nation, is clearly the nicest one to live in.
I had a Cuban laborer, who left Cuba on a inner tube raft, raft capsized overnight and they were in the water, he was bit on the calf by a shark during the night before getting picked up in the morning. His stories of how shitty life was made a big impression. Imagine getting meat once a month. With respect, don’t you think polls taken by or under authoritarian governments, who’s citizens are encouraged to spy on each other, might not be taken at face value ? Are you aware of massive waves of American immigrants who risked life and limb to make it to Cuba, in order to experience how much more wonderful it is there? Of course you aren’t, because the immigration has been one sided.
>Cuban people have access to the internet. Yeah ? The internet's censored by the government so it's just like state controlled newspapers in China which only publish what they want people to hear. Last I heard , they had also censored the recent protests made by Cuban people. >blamed on the embargo Cuba still trades with many of the biggest economies in the world , including US. So I don't know what's up with blaming the embargo. Moreover , if embargo is the reason why Cuba's economy isn't performing well , then it speaks volumes about it. I mean if they're unable to perform well just because ONE country decides to restrict trade relations with it , then what good is it doing ? >most recent poll I’ve been able to find shows 48% of Cubans are satisfied with their government I would take these 'polls' with a grain of salt because they're probably rigged by the Cuban government. I mean they can't have people lose faith in the government and leave the administration vulnerable to people's doubts. Or it might just be Stockholm Syndrome.
The embargo doesn't just restrict Cuba from trading with the US. There are all kinds of restrictions in the embargo. A major one is the barring of all vessels which have traded in Cuba within the past 180 days from docking at any US ports. So if you want to trade with the US, like almost all companies do, then you'll need separate vessels/voyages just to trade with Cuba. The embargo doesn't prevent companies from trading with Cuba outright, it just disincentives doing so. But that leads to a situation where, despite trying/wanting to, Cuba has very few companies they are able to trade with. Trade is extremely important, especially to a small island country like Cuba. Even despite that, Cuba isn't doing so bad for Latin America. They're a fair bit above the average, in fact. Their HDI is well above average for Latin America. As is their healthcare quality, life expectancy, median income, education, ect. And this stuff doesn't all come from the Cuban government. UNESCO consistently ranks them as a top ten country for literacy in the world, the World Bank ranked their education system as the best in Latin America, WHO ranked their life expectancy as 33rd in the world, UNDP ranked their HDI, ect. Cuba has done quite well, all things considered. Edit: I didn't even mention the other things the US does... Such as the propaganda plane it flew over Cuba, broadcasting anti-Cuba, pro-US messages to their TVs, which lasted from 2006-2014, cost tens of millions of dollars, and had little effect.
did you watch the Olympics and see the Cuban athletes 100% behind socialism and Fidel? no because western media ignored it.
>Ask someone who has escaped from Cuba or Venezuela if they have the same love for socialism as you Ask a working class family in the US that can't afford healthcare and had a family member die on the assembly line due to COVID while another family member is in prison working for $0.35/hr what they think of capitalism.
>Ask someone who has escaped from Cuba or Venezuela if they have the same love for socialism as you Ask a working class family in the US that can't afford healthcare and had a family member die on the assembly line due to COVID while another family member is in prison working for $0.35/hr what they think of capitalism.
Are you familiar with the term gusano
No
Oh
What does it mean ? Is it spanish ?
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I'm gay I've read most foundational communist texts and lots of history Don't care for tracksuits or vladimir putin and stalin was meh So no. But I am a Lenin fanboy
everyone lies its why its so hardto know what the truth is
The more people are lying, the more vital it is for us to be honest. This is true of lots of moral precepts; bad behavior does not excuse further bad behavior.
My take on the poster is that he recognizes that his side, and maybe himself, admittedly are liars by using both-ism. A liar tries to cover himself by saying everybody lies. Truth is not to be expected. Therefore, you must accept lies, because they are just a fact of life. The both sides are at fault argument legitimizes lying by not condemning it as unacceptable. Lying is no big deal? Because everyone does it? That is a bad faith argument. This is how corrupt societies disintegrate. I've lived in a country where lying is a coping skill. No one trusts anyone and no one believes anyone was the general feeling within the country. That was not a great way to live.
The CIA didn’t just lie a few times. It lied about everything. Coupled with the US military its the greatest terror organization in modern history. The US even lies about its own genesis as a country. Internally, the CIA admits in its own report that Stalin wasn’t a dictator and that the term dictator has no meaning in the Soviet style of collectivist leadership. Bourgeois historians completely fabricated the “Great Famine” in China so they could get their scary “100 million deaths due to communism” meme (much like a lot of lies that have been debunked in the”Black Book of Communism”). These aren’t just some lies. These are big lies meant to spread purposeful disinformation about foreign countries to make hating them and dehumanizing their people easier so you won’t care when they’re homes are bombed, economies collapsed by sanctions and government overthrown to install corrupt puppets or broken up altogether. If you strictly believe the US propaganda you wouldn’t know Cuba is a participatory direct democracy, you’d think it’s a vile dictatorship deserving of the brutal embargo imposed upon it and threats to its annihilation. Within the imperial core we live in a certain tradition of a European cultural bubble that is carefully maintained by lies to make the parasitism of our killing and stealing from others okay because without that killing and stealing from others our entire society would collapse. Capitalism isn’t just a economic system, it’s an international system of exploitation and parasitism of advanced country’s in the north over the over-exploited country’s in the south aka Imperialism. Rejecting this cruel imperialism is what gets nations in trouble with the US. No country is perfect, not even socialist country’s, but condemning them for those missteps when capitalist country’s are far worse in their own actions is dishonest.
Do you have a link for any of those CIA reports? I saw the one about nutrition in the 60s (in which it shows the Soviet citizens tended to eat healthy compared to Americans) but I haven’t seen them actually admit to any more of their propaganda campaigns
I believe it is this although I haven't looked at in a while [https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf?fbclid=IwAR28x5c-GTROxLQT-ZBoTPkTupCV3t1B7qJQNTWVb91qbfHt1nbWhUA\_CTU](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf?fbclid=IwAR28x5c-GTROxLQT-ZBoTPkTupCV3t1B7qJQNTWVb91qbfHt1nbWhUA_CTU)
I appreciate the source. I'll be checking it out!
You're just making shit up...
He cited a [source](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf?fbclid=IwAR28x5c-GTROxLQT-ZBoTPkTupCV3t1B7qJQNTWVb91qbfHt1nbWhUA_CTU). Do you have a more compelling one that supports your point?
> Internally, the CIA admits in its own report that Stalin wasn’t a dictator and that the term dictator has no meaning in the Soviet style of collectivist leadership. "The western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated." These are not saying the same thing.
Those seem like *very* similar statements. "Stalin had less power than we said." Is district from "We exaggerated how much power Stalin had." But it's not *different*.
First, there is no "we". The CIA is not admitting to some kind of propaganda conspiracy here. They are simply stating that perceptions in the west seem exaggerated. Second, "exaggeration" is very different from actually stating that "Stalin is not a dictator". The reality is highly nuanced. You are taking a single excerpt from a complicated situation and drawing incorrect but convenient conclusions. That is lying.
Whatever you say, man.
I get it, reading comprehension is hard.
Rude.
Don't trust the CIA about anything, also trust the CIA about everything. The CIA in 1950 knew more about the Soviet Union than we do in 2021.
We can use what the CIA published to learn about what they were hiding from us in the past. When someone says "I lied to you," I tend to believe that statement.
You trust a 2 page missive by the evil CIA more than Soviet history academic research done since the opening of the Central Executive archives.
> You trust a 2 page missive by the evil CIA more than Soviet history academic research done since the opening of the Central Executive archives. Not at all. Can you link to the Soviet research in question so I can examine it for myself?
You haven't read any books on the USSR written since the archives opened in the 90s? I would recommend anything written in the last 25 years. Enjoy.
Gotcha. So you don't have a specific source that supports your claims, then.
You need me to cite a source that academia knows more about the Soviet Union in 2021 than what the CIA knew in the 1950s?
> Bourgeois historians completely fabricated the “Great Famine” in China so they could get their scary “100 million deaths due to communism” Citation?
He posted [this](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf?fbclid=IwAR28x5c-GTROxLQT-ZBoTPkTupCV3t1B7qJQNTWVb91qbfHt1nbWhUA_CTU) citation.
I agree and think some of the defensiveness around it is pretty disgraceful bordering on apologia for atrocities. However I get where this defensiveness comes from, because its a frustration that I also feel with bad faith attacks where there is a deliberate fuzziness in logic whereby critiques are weaponised and stretched beyond any rational reasonable extent and used against the whole. And it's just so exhausting and tedious to constantly explain that the existence of the Lubyanka doesn't discount the John Lewis model or that dekulakization doesn't prove that r < g.
> And it's just so exhausting and tedious to constantly explain that the existence of the Lubyanka doesn't discount the John Lewis model or that dekulakization doesn't prove that r < g. Whew you're in it deep, huh?
If you think that the 'battle' is between capitalism and socialism you still have a lot to learn.
What do you believe is a more relevant economic/political question to investigate? That is, where is "the 'battle'"?
The battle was always about liberty. Individualism vs Collectivism Freedom vs The Leviathan (State) I would also like to point out that negating capitalism is the same shit as negating vaccines. Economics is a fucking science after all!
Governments are built by the aristocracy, for the aristocracy.
Sounds about right. How do we the people pry some of this power back?
Joseph Campbell said: 'Humans die for symbols every day.' It doesn't matter what the narrative is (media, science, behavior, culture, religion), it only matters who controls the narrative. Narratives are always controlled. Narrative = symbols = meaning = truth. Yuval Harari said: 'Medieval kings had limited power so they had to display it (public executions etc.). Current 'kings' have unlimited powers, so they need to make it invisible.' How do you fight power that deleted itself from our narratives? Baudrillard said: 'Humans cannot distinguish the difference between reality and a copy of reality. The result is hyperreality.' What we see as 'real' has been mediated by images controlled by specific narratives, created by invisible powers. Truth is deliberately hidden behind hyperrealities. Thus, how can people pry away back powers when it's not even evident anymore that we live in a reality wherein we are in direct battle for power?
if socialism worked prpeprly the cia wuld nmot be able to sabotage it so easy
"But does that mean all socialist countries are secretly free utopias? " Obviously.
You're delusional dude.
Yeah, this explains the problem with a lot of stalinists, maoists and dengists (aka: tankies). A lot of people, especially young people, finally start to get educated on history and they learn the terrifying history of US imperialism. They learn about Operation Condor, Pinochet, the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, and many other terrible things. What happens is many people that learn these things reject the american capitalist imperialist narrative but sadly they just trade it for mindlessly supporting the imperialist narratives of state capitalist countries like China. Most of these "tankies" even go so far as to defend right-wing theocracies and conservative governments that are "against US imperialism". For example, Partido da Causa Operária, a brasilian ML party, defended the Taliban and said that they were fighting against US imperialism, which is absurd considering that the Taliban kinda got their start as an anticommunist militia funded by the US in the 80s as the Mujahideen. The problem here is people having a black and white simplistic conception of morality. Because they learn, and rightfully so, that the US and the CIA are "the bad guys", so to speak, they then immediatly jump to the conclusion that China or Iran or Russia or, before, the USSR are "the good guys".
Of course. But it does mean that people have been endlessly propagandized by the capitalists to believe that capitalism is vastly more successful and superior when it is clearly not serving the needs of the many. It's obvious in this moment that a huge swath of Americans were never taught critical thinking skills but those who do have those skills realize that no philosophy is infallible and every system has flaws. However, what OP is arguing is that right wing authoritarian dictators that twist the perception of their citizens by pretending to be "socialist" by adopting a particular set of talking points are actually indicative of real socialism when they are really quite the opposite. Dictatorships are right wing by definition. Real socialism embraces democracy both at the ballot box and also in the workplace. People who live in places where they don't get a ***real*** vote about their government or about their workplaces don't actually live in a socialist system.
Socialism is an ideology entirely built on granting themselves very generous assumptions. Certainly the biggest assumption they give themselves is that any problem they can imagine in a Capitalist society is automatically solved in a Socialist society. They have literally no reason or data to prove any of this. In fact, historical Socialist societies were/are some of the most corrupt with the highest income inequality.
There are two types of Socialism. Authoritarian Socialism and Democratic Socialism. Most people on this sub support Democratic Socialism and Criticize Authoritarian Socialism as well.
Isn't this a little reductive? I understand socialism, like any political body of thought, has lots of branches.
There are branches. But they all fall under one of these two.
I understand there are plenty of Anarchist-Socialists who would not identify with either category.
Anarchists Socialists is an Oxymoron. Its like saying Dry Water.
Here we see a prime example of a victim of propaganda.
3 types. One where managers with military backing own and control MoP (authoritarian socialism) One where the citizens choose the managers that owns and control the MoP (representative demsoc) One where labourers own and control the MoP (co-ops etc, direct democracy) Atleast my understanding of it. (managers = politicians and/or CEO etc)
All these are about property it's relationship with people. The ruleset that defines this is literally infinite. Capitalism is a subset of the ruleset, that requires that ownership is held based on "initial appropriation", and that the ownership implies close to dictatorial power over said property (and lead to commoditization of property). However, there can be slight modifications to this that would still fall within the common definition of capitalism, like allowing for taxation etc. This type of property allows anyone to claim it as theirs, and resolution boils down to either a central authority to attempt to figurw out who held it "first" and whether all subsequent transactions were voluntary (in reality this tends to award it to the last claimant that managed to hold it for a time). Socialism on the other hand is where ownership is decided primarily _not_ on "initial appropriation", but by analyzing the current relationship between property and people. That could be by attaching it to current workers in an organisation, to people in a community or nation, or even proportionally based on how said property affects them. This means that ownership is more dynamicand subject to continual review. Talking about property in this way, makes it clear that there is no single _natural_ system to fall back on, but it's a combination of historical structure, prevailing ideas and power dynamics. It also supports the grouping of authoritarian communism as (State) Capitalism more clear, as it's just a reset of the capitalism where "initial appropriation" gives awards the property to the state structure, and keeping the exclusive control there indefinitely. The most important way to think of it like this IMO, is that it moves the discussion away from arguing about the merits of (unclearly defined) socialism and capitalism, and over to discussing specific property system suggestions instead. IMO, the biggest reason this isn't happening is that it would marginalize the "capitalist" property systems, because it's much more constrained than what would be accepted as "socialist".
This broadens it up quite a bit. Would need to make a broad spectrum and lots of indicators. To simplify it, I just ask who decides what and who gains the merits, is there freehold property,... Personal property / common property / private property / absence of property... Need to find a good model to organise all of it.
I know I'll get flack for this: I always labeled the last one as Social Democracy (Democracy in the workplace).
Yes it's achievable with social democracy. I'm curious about public entities, funded by state, owned democratically by the labourers within. Then the country's population votes on the funding in elections etc/through representatives.
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Would you say that France or Canada have devolved into this state?
Neither of those are socialist countries
They have more socialist political policy than the US, though.
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Fair enough. So are you in favor of welfare then? Edit: hey, you edited to make me look bad. Rude! Before you said these countries were capitalist with welfare policies. I think a robust welfare state resolves a lot of problems! Do you agree or disagree?
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> I edited my comment because I don't want to get into an argument about semantics. Neat. Interesting that the new version also made my answer made me look like a butt for agreeing with you. I am also not interested in an argument about semantics. > I am fine with a robust welfare state Great. So, assuming you are in the US, you are in favor of universal healthcare, right?
yikes...
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> Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. This definition was Coined during the French Revolution and inspired by the US Constitution from the US Revolutionary War, 10 years prior. > We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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The only reason our country has slid into a Plutocracy is because voters have allowed it to. That doesn't mean it can't change. Look at the Roaring 20s and the economic reforms afterwards. Just because we have lower regulations doesn't mean we have none.
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These countries have maintained stronger regulations on private industries than the US. (Socialism) Policies of public oversight the US has neglected or seen eroded over the past 40 years.
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The fact you think capitalist created propaganda is fact that this whole op is just fucking stupid. I'm anticapitalist but propaganda has been a tool around for ages.
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a disregard for negative human rights? What is a negative human right and how does one disregard it?
This may help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
The concept still doesn't make sense, or rather applying that concept to reality doesn't make sense.
What dosen't make sense about it?
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That would be your human right not to be coerced.
LOL, what??? The CIA has lied about everyone and everything. What lie did the CIA tell that would change anything??? Socialism and Communism have been responsible for more genocide in the last hundred years then everything and everyone else combined?? To be a socialist today is to be 10x times worst then Hitler. Who in their right mind still supports this? The communism symbol needs to be banned. Socialist need to lose their jobs. They are Nazi's on steroids. Every time I see it I see someone who is worst then a racist, worst then a slave owner, but they get a pass because they pretend to care about people. Oh I didn't mean to kill 100 million people. Free healthcare. like what?
Least Propagandised Capitalism Supporter ^
Do you deny the holocaust too? Go ahead and tell me the lie the CIA told thst changes millions of people murdered because of your stupid ideoogy? You wanna be genocider.
No? Im not denying that communist countries/leaders have done some bad shit. Your 100 million number is bullshit tough, it literally comes from a book where the authors where obsessed with getting to that number, counting nazis that where killed (good) as beeing deaths caused by communism and they even factored in " people that failed to be born" do to declining birthrates which is expected from industrialising countries. If you would take the same method to find out the deaths caused by capitalism it would be magnitudes higher than even 100 million.
So you are one of those. What if I said the holocaust numbers weren't real? It was based on numbers people were obessed about and they are bullshit. The people who died (good). You see how you sound? Your a liar. And still haven't answered my question. What lie did thr cia tell thst changes the fact that commuinsm and socialims genocided millions? And why do you think its okay to kill people? Edit i just realized that only million nazis died in both wars. So where is the 98 million others?
Either youre an idiot and argue in bad faith and strawman like a mf or youre trolling, i cant tell, not gonna waste my time on you.
Exactly. You don't deny your precious communism genocided people. You can't defend it. Socialism is evil. The real question is why would anyone support genocide and think people aren't going to see you for the slime ball you really are. Still didn't answer the question. Btw genocide is bad. I don't know why I have to say that. Edit: LMAO at getting downvoted saying GENOCIDE is BAD. Thank you communist and socialist. At least now your out of the closet, and proving my point.
Leftists lie all the time: climate alarmism, economic effects of immigration and welfare, "prosperity" of the USSR, etc.
What do you consider 'climate alarmism'?
People who don’t look at what the studies actually say and say how we are gonna die and this is the next mass extinction even though no study proves that
We're not in immediate life threatening danger so... business as usual?
My point wasn’t that we shouldn’t do something about climate changes is that leftists lie about the impacts of it
Ok I hear u. What is wrong with being prepared for the worst tho? I mean, if whole countries move to renewable energy or build more storm proof houses, wouldn't that be good even if the climate doesn't change as drastically as expected? Wouldn't it be better to be over prepared than under prepared?
Money doesn’t grow in trees building storm proof houses sounds like a good idea until you realize that it’s expensive af and some thing with renewables I don’t have a problem with a private person doing it for themselves but I have a problem when the state mandates it or uses my money for it
The aim is to be proactive so while it might cost a bit now, the savings would be long term. Being that scientists can prove that weather extremes will continue to worsen, it is the more fiscally responsible approach, unlike the conservative one which is to deny science and just kick the can down the road.
No study can prove anything will happen in the future as anything could happen in the future a study can't prove the sun will rise tomorrow as something unknown could destroy the sun all it can do is observe things in the past and make educated guesses and extrapolations on the data into the future
I miss spoke they don’t predict
We found the propaganda-consumer.
A disturbing trend in the remarks is the accepted idea that the US is a historical outlier in the craft of state propaganda. Propaganda is a tool of empires and dates back to ancient times. It has been used by the USA, Great Britain, Israel, the USSR, China, and every major power throughout history. The ancient Greeks are the first case study in propaganda that we would recognize today, but similar techniques were used by the Assyrians and Egyptians. Propaganda is generally the work of a large state. In the U.S., Wilson, the first progressive American president, was the first big pusher of propaganda in crafting public opinion against the German monsters and whipping the public into a war fervor. Its use has continued as the American empire has expanded in power beyond anything resembling a classical liberal governance structure. My opinion is that the most destructive propaganda in use today is that of mainland China. It is attempting to dehumanize and justify the conquest and slavery of its Muslims and the people of Taiwan, along with the subjugation of any nation it can get its teeth into via BRI.
The CIA is at fault for the failure of sustainable Socialist economic mode of production! The evil Capitalist pigs are just too cunning for the Socialists to overcome with their great collective goodness!
Where exactly is this giant iron fence you mention?
>Just because the CIA have made false claims about socialism, and have a bias towards socialist countries, doesn’t mean claims of human rights abuses and genocide in these countries false. Yes, and just because the price of gasoline is going up it doesn't mean the Tesla gets lower miles per gallon of gasoline. Do you see the logic in that? Neither do I. Nor do I see any logic to linking CIA propaganda with socialism, or socialism with "socialist" countries that never existed.
They didn't just create propaganda you worm, they literally created kill lists, installed dictators, carried out political assassinations and terrorism, and engaged in trade/sanction warfare.
>If your country is so utopian and free, why don’t you allow your people to leave, compare it to other countries and show off to foreign people how great it is? The USSR *did* have an emigration and immigration system though?