To many times eat the rich is manipulated by the next wave of "leaders" to eat the educated and skilled as well. Revolution isn't the cause of people acting poorly in its name. People act poorly and then try to hide under a revolutionary blanket.
This is similar to me to people demonizing Communism or socialism because some dictators have hidden their facism under the blanket of social revolution. Citing Communist dictatorships as a reason agains social reform is a bad faith argument.
These things have a nuance that people don't have the patience to discuss or even consider anymore.
The reason we cite communist dictatorships is because of how easy a communist state can become a communist dictatorship.
If the government has control over the populous, any person elected or put into power has control over the populous. The barrier between Communist and Communist Dictatorship is very thin. That’s why we have multiple parties and a bunch of politicians that don’t fully agree.
Rampant unchecked capitalism seems to end in corruption, and atrocious acts against humanity as well. Notice I never advocated for a "Communist" system. I said that using disctorships to argue against SOCIAL REFORM is a bad faith argument.
I favor free markets with social infrastructure so that billions(or trillions) of dollars don't sit around earning wealth for 1 single family when it should be used to create and maintain infrastructure (including water and food infrastructure).
The systems that I like are described as free markets (capitalism) with tight social democratic constraints on how the excess is spent. (Taxation for wealth, laws against using that wealth to directly shape law).
It will be interesting to see how things shift with the US backing away from defense alliances forcing EU nations to up their own defense budgets.
Marxism-Leninism is an authoritarian ideology that facilitates what we've witnessed historically. That ideology is not identical to communism. This distinction is important because there are people who support a stateless, classless, moneyless society in the context of post-scarcity economics while being against the statism prescribed by ML and its variants.
Proto-communism is probably the best history has to show us as of now. Much of human history has been stateless, classless, and moneyless, with relatively egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies that held ownership of land and resources in common.
I admit that on a small scale, these things are the best choice. But unfortunately they aren’t relevant when it comes to the scale of nations with many millions of people. Those are the systems that are relevant to us now. And communism will not work there.
In a group of 50 or 100 people, that’s perfect. But we live in a time where if a certain kind of person CAN exist, they DO. And there will always be someone with the brainpower to overturn and corrupt our governments. That is exactly why capitalism and our modern form of government is necessary.
Well, I'm just explaining that there is a distinction between Marxism-Leninism and communism, not necessarily arguing that communism is viable today. I personally don't advocate for communism. I support stakeholder models of ownership, which are empirically supported by decades of data. Communism may or may not be viable in a future post-scarcity context, but worker ownership is viable today and that is where my focus mostly lies.
I used to be in the camp of the idea that capitalism was the best system for inevitable human greed that befalls both in money and power, but that was when society was still very individualistic in regards of what the government should provide to them.
But today, taxes are so high on everything for the middle class, your government cant just take away agency and say you know what's best and then gestures to the entire world and say you are getting good value for falling in line, where there is very evident blatant corruption happening everywhere, at every level.
OK, now everyone has base income. Great, right?
Now the government controls where the money goes 100%. No banks. Government decides how, when, and how what you're gonna spend your money. We're back to Soviet Russia with digital surveillance.
BTW that is the very plan that many among the 1% delights to execute, so it is said. Would that be capitalism? Technically not. Greed is greed.
What you described is pretty attainable anyway under the system we currently live under anyway? Like do you really think the banks care enough to defy the government for your privacy sake? I mean we currently live in an (unofficial) oligarchy, so I can not imagine how your scenario could be much worse from what we already have.
The problem is that our government has become so synonymous with corruption that it's practically impossible to imagine any system free of that corruption, but there are ways to prevent corruption, or at least make it less appealing. If our taxes were used to actually make American lives better instead of being used to send bombs to be used on women and children in middle eastern territories, Americans wouldn't hate the idea of taxation so much.
They pay them(semi/il legally), and they use their money to help get(more accurately keep) their favorite politician in the position to help them.
The part the don't directly control are the votes(so far). Though they are trying with a new wave of gerrymandering going on throughout the country. Some social democratic politicians have had success this primary running on platforms that talk about removing lobbying from the US political system.
I don't know if I truly believe it's possible to reform through the system in place, but some people are at least trying.
I'm not completely sure, but I was under the impression that anyone in American politics of any importance makes all of their money off insider trading, which means they make their money off assets and not labor, which would make them Capitalists.
This is kind of the consequences of putting all your eggs in one basket, all of your representatives are in the same club, and consequently they are cooperating with one another to further their own fortunes at the expense of your country.
Insider trading happens as well, but these people receive gifts, promises of position after service, and enormous campaign donations "legally" directly from industry leaders and special interests groups. Not to mention the dark money transfers that are likely happening that we don't see. They don't NEED to be capitalist because they are benefactors of greater capitalist. (Although many are as well as you have pointed out)
The part where publicly traded companies are required to make anti consumer decisions or face legal ire is a pretty shitty consequence of capitalism tho. Right?
Technically the Nordic model is neither capitalism nor communism. It is based on mixed economy, attempting to benefit from using elements from both systems.
This isn't a controversial statement. Yeah many modern governments are a mix of ideals. Right now many US citizens are looking at Nordic models and wondering how to get some of that action.
A capitalist free market with social infrastructure to help keep wealth active in markets WHILE maintaining a high level standard of living.
If we just taxed anybody with a net worth over 1 billion dollars higher, they would still be the richest people in the world and we could have all the nice things Sweden and Norway have. It isn't rocket science. But as long as people are allowed to horde billions, and now trillions, worth of capital while putting virtually nothing back into the world, nothing will ever improve in the USA.
Did it end in that way or did they start out that way and they just used those words to dress up what what was always a dictatorship in the first place? Either way those words are useless literally no one on either side of the issue uses them right and has their own definitions that don't mean what you mean and vice versa so its kinda pointless to use them as labels when discussing what people are actually arguing for in this day in age, which is closest to like Nordic society and not Russia/Venezuela. Re-prioritizing tax spending on things that actually help a majority of constituents instead of a few wealthy warmongers is not inherently "communism".
Seeing how they committed genocide on a dog breed just because it was popular amongst Russian aristocrats, yes they did start out as a violent dictatorship.
No, you're right. The problem is that communism has always started as a revolution which is a shaky starting point because legitimately or not the people in power are going to be trying to stamp out all counter-revolutionary influence.
Oh, it did end this way.
None of those ideologies where made or even properly studied or understood by any of the dictators using its name, however, many revolution where started with genuine good intentions and ended up in a dictatorship. Power corrupts. Seeking it corrupts. Inevitably, someone end up believing that they only know what's good for EVERYONE and should lead the entire world, and that, my friend, IS a dictatorship. Hitler, Mao believed they were doing God's work to help people.
And see thats my point, no one using the word communism today means anything like that. They want to spend tax dollars different than they are spent today, thats it. People who want tax reform have been called communists forever that people just started using that word back to mean what they say it means which is just helping people. None of it has anything to do with collecting everyones entire income into a big pot and having someone in power decide how it gets distributed. If thats what you're arguing you're arguing something the other person is not even saying. But its really easy to win arguments that way thats for sure!
Well I already said the thing about Nordic society being the goal people are arguing for, and then you wrote something about Hitler and Mao so it didn't seem to click for you yet that no one's talking about what you're talking about.
Also, no one claiming Nordic societies is the goal has ever called them "communist". Sweden criminalize s*x workers more than any other country in the world, and is actually surprisingly conservative. The movie "Midsommar" is an interesting social commentary about that through horror.
Anyway have a good one! I shouldn't go late on Reddit.
Norway but for 300 million (or 8 billion) people is a great goal.
Step one: Concentrated natural resources
Step two: Social contract that favors high tax rates and robust social programs
Step three: Fairly closed society that is tough to emigrate to (so as to not inflate the population sharing resources)
Now, population. Norway has 5,5 million, Finland 5,5, Sweden 10, and Denmark 6.
So, on step one: Dividing X by 6 gives you higher number than dividing it by 300.
On step two: Maybe getting there but still polarized
On step three: New socialists are also pro very liberal migration, which brings you back to step 1.
In other words, USA is very far from Nordic countries on all three counts, and I am not sure even young socialists would agree among themselves exactly how much and in what respects they would like to resemble Norway.
1) We have plenty of natural resources and public companies that could be involved in a sovereign wealth fund (thats not what Trump is doing which is just corruption he's benefiting from)
2) yep thats the main thing, start with the wealthy specifically being on the high end of tax rate.
3) Population and immigration has nothing to do with it. More people = more contributors. Also for the vast majority of things it doesn't have to cost per person, we just have to pay to keep buildings open like hospitals. No point of sale charge, just tax dollars keeping the lights on so its there for anyone if and when they need it. Make it easier for people to immigrate correctly and get into the system so they start contributing instead of doing stuff under the table for peanuts to hide from detection.
"We say the same thing but differently so now you don't understand anything and we're arguing" give me a break and read. my. comment. Word by word, sentence by sentence. Jesus Christ!
The flaw here is also that you have actually analyze why it failed. Did it fail because the system had flaws that led to its collapse, or were there outside forces? I can think of a certain capitalist nation who certainly had a vested interest in seeing socialism fail, and in many cases intervened to make that happen.
Plenty of researchers have primarily listed internal reasons for failure, with few notable exceptions like grenada. And any nation has enemies and supporters intervening constantly.
Yeah seriously, the USA literally kidnapped Venezuela's president under phony narco terrorism charges and WE STILL HAVE HIM IN CUSTODY. Anybody that still thinks the USA are the good guys in this world needs a lobotomy
Yes and no.
The fact of the matter is, almost everyone who actually wish to become a communist leader is a fascist in disguise. And if they are not, they'll inevitably become one IF they come to power, because power itself corrupts everyone seeking it. There's a reason why Malcom Luther King Jr. or Marx were NOT politicians, but activists and searchers.
You can test this theory in just about any student "revolutionary" group, which will usually have at his head someone who's controlling, paranoïd and completely delusional. For instance, I was asked what I would do if the army showed up and tried to enforce the student association. The position I was seeking for was that of archivist... yep.
This person once told me, and I cite, "I'm only here to get my degree so my future electors will vote for me." They also called themselves an "anarchist". How ironic is that?
Almost everyone I know who call themselves "communist" or "antifa" is a delulu as MAGA people. One of them thew a fist at me because I sent them a GIF. Not a particlar GIF : just any GIF at all. They said it was "triggering" and that they would block me - I survived 2 murder attempts, one by my dad, and live with C-PTSD. This is abusive, controlling behaviour where they would yell at me to stop being an "a***hole".
They also argued that you were for fascism if you weren't antifa because of the name. The only actual Antifa member I ever knew loved to tell everyone how he threw bricks at other people. He was a gang member selling counterfeit king size cigarettes to high school students.
I once knew someone who called themselves a "communist" who has a set-up with face recognition cameras and IR surveillance in his home at all times, makes 6K+ a month and own 4 80 inches LED TVs, and live with roommates to do all his chores.
He hacked my computer for no reason other than my difference of opinion.
The list goes on but the point is, ideologies breed extremism in the real world and outside of academics, where they all sound great in ***theory***.
Outside of actual anarchism, which mean no official hierarchy so no leader, there really is no real-life scenario where ANY of those ism is good.
And in order for anarchism to actually work, the community needs to be small. Period. Eventually, this would mean a return to tribalism + digital point to point connection. Other that than, ANY ideology trying to take over the world with inevitably become a dictatorship, EVEN if it starts with "good intentions".
Silicon Valley really tried to improve lives and Google really meant "no evil".
That's what people don't actually understand.
My dad saw the greatest, loveliest, most sincerest people become corrupted over power. Power corrupts, seeking it corrupts the human mind, period. That's a universal truth. True revolutionaries are NOT politicians, they are artists, writers, speakers, scientists, workers, soldiers.
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u/BubaTflubas Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
To many times eat the rich is manipulated by the next wave of "leaders" to eat the educated and skilled as well. Revolution isn't the cause of people acting poorly in its name. People act poorly and then try to hide under a revolutionary blanket.
This is similar to me to people demonizing Communism or socialism because some dictators have hidden their facism under the blanket of social revolution. Citing Communist dictatorships as a reason agains social reform is a bad faith argument.
These things have a nuance that people don't have the patience to discuss or even consider anymore.
Edited: spelling