Quote:
If your first instinct as a westerner is to criticize and lecture 3rd world communist movements, instead of learning from their successes, then you have internalized the patronizing arrogance of the colonial system you claim to oppose.
Western liberals who think they are entirely objective and free of bias really struggle to get to grips with how much of their world view is just patronizing racist chauvinism.
Also I’m not even sure why liberals are permitted on lemmy. Send them and their disgusting violent ideology back to corporate media.
I have a better one:
About all politics. No exceptions.
Signed: Brazilian.
My only complaint is that the Baltics aren’t included in the Shut The Fuck Up Zone.
Is that a whale
The “Shut the Fuck Up Gringo” whale.
Meanwhile the success in question: The 3rd world communist countries have managed to more or less industrialize and build up wealth, but under (state) capitalist system with all the bells of whistles which are markets, commodity production, wage labor, etc. In other words, they used capitalism to build up wealth.
Don’t get me wrong, I actually think they had some absolutely amazing policies for the workers like free housing and social benefits, and good on them for building themselves up. However, this has nothing to do with socialism (socialist mode of production in this case) or communism as it was achieved with, and is therefore a win for capitalism - the same system that drove colonialism and the system that had already built up wealth for ‘non-socialist’ feudal/agrarian countries in the 19-20th century.
EDIT: Damn, judging from the amount of upvotes, it genuinely feels like walking into a bar and everyone drawing a gun and pointing at you. This is probably the most antagonistic I’ve been towards ML (or MLM/Dengist/Maoist) ideology and it’s kinda disappointing how there’s no actual non-ML Marxists to be seen here.
That is another western chauvinist talking point. That any development of industry (the primary task of countries who’ve just freed themselves from colonial rule), is a “betrayal” of socialism, because it didn’t go according to whatever the given critic laid out as sufficiently socialist enough, and that only the western critics of socialist countries have the correct plan.
China specifically can’t be called state capitalist in the slightest, considering that the CPC stands above the political system, unlike capitalist dictatorships where capital rises above political power:
- The backbone of the economy is state ownership and socialist planning. 24 / 25 of the top revenue companies are state-owned and planned. 70% of the top 500 companies are State-owned. 1, 2 The largest bank, construction, electricity, and energy companies in the world, are CPC controlled entities, subject to the 5 year plans laid out by the central committee.
- The myth of Chinese state capitalism. Did Deng really betray Chinese socialism?
You’ve done a really good job misrepresenting my argument, keep it up.
That is another western chauvinist talking point.
Yeah, any critique of 3rd world communist countries is western chauvinism, therefore we should avoid looking at those countries through objective materialist perspective and uncritically support them just because they’re third-worldist - that’s something an imperialist crakkka like me should know.
That any development of industry (the primary task of countries who’ve just freed themselves from colonial rule), is a “betrayal” of socialism, because it didn’t go according to whatever the given critic laid out as sufficiently socialist enough, and that only the western critics of socialist countries have the correct plan.
I’d like you to point out where I said that industrialization is bad. The argument is literally about how the development was achieved and I concluded that it was through (state) capitalism and capitalist mode of production rather than socialism, even saying how it’s good that they managed to build up wealth. I explicitly didn’t moralize this either, this is literally how these countries materially functioned.
My critique also comes strictly from Marxism which is essentially the basis for communism regardless of culture, but sure.
China specifically can’t be called state capitalist in the slightest, considering that the CPC stands above the political system
You’re confusing political power with class relations, the key isn’t who holds political power but what social relations of production are. If a state (CPC controlled or otherwise) oversees an economy where wage labor, capital accumulation, commodity exchange persists, then it’s still state capitalism.
i’m not sure there’s any metric by which the soviet union could be called a success but go off king
Yeah that’s so true there are only 2 politics forever and when one lose the other gain that is so true not
socialism or barbarism baby, and you’re on the side of the barbarians
How can you possibly read what amounts to “consider the context of your beliefs” and decide to leave this sarcastic, nonsense comment?
My beliefs is that capitalism is an abhorrent apocalyptic cult. The text says I should consider so I considered. I realised I don’t care about fucking bickering about “the other side” because it’s childish. I want to only talk about benefits of policy that is fully opposing capitalism
There are two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. There’s myriad bourgeois ideologies and myriad proletarian ideologies. When the proletarians come to power, the bourgeoisie oppose their ideology and their state. That’s true of third world communist projects.
Nope, there are as many people and they are different. The buregoise are a plague a systematic plague and you help them by having a class war that they become desperate to win. We can have beneficial policy and support each other while dismantling the oligarchy without being feral assholes ourselves
What are you talking about? The “peaceful” status quo is already a class war. Capitalism is devouring the planet by creating conditions that will inevitably displace hundreds of millions of people as ecosystems collapse over the next ~20 years. I don’t even want to imagine how many people are going to die of starvation, heat stroke, or gunned down at the borders by the fascist stormtroopers. That is a level of violence that no socialist state has ever unleashed on the world, not even in WW2. There is no “beneficial policy.” Capital only responds to profit, that’s why workers strike instead of appealing to the good nature of their employers. Don’t you think the same applies to the whole system? The capitalists, executives of energy companies for example, have known they were destroying the world for decades. In the early 2000s they were writing letters to the Bush admin asking the government to put stronger regulations on them, because capital is entirely incapable of stopping itself from the race to the bottom, to make the most profit possible out of the exploitation of labor and natural resources. You should seriously consider how possible it is to stop these processes without revolution.
Why should I consider that when I haven’t expressed that standpoint? What do you mean there exists no “beneficial policy”? There is a class war yes and I aim to win it. You seem to want to attack random people with facts you absorbed about how bad capitalism is. Rage bait consumer is just another hook in capitalism you eat greedily. You give nothing to improve or develop an actual communist uprising except hatred. Why should I be lashed you imagine as if I am a pig of the greediest cunts? You have zero interest in actually growing political movements and culture, and an intense fire at breaking society down. It is symptomatic of capitalism and you will most likely not be freed from it by dismantling anything but will carry this hate your life out and point it to new things until it kills you. Your hate is manufactured and consumed just like any capitalist product
The buregoise are a plague a systematic plague and you help them by having a class war that they become desperate to win.
These were your words from the previous comment. Are you against class war or not?
And when I say there’s no beneficial policy I mean you won’t ever get lasting reforms by electing better politicians, you’ll just get temporary concessions that will be taken away the next time there’s a crisis. I think looking at the fall of European social democracy since the dissolution of the USSR should prove my point: European workers opted for just getting “beneficial policy” instead of revolution, and now the benefits are gone.
In the case of capitalism that is literally true. Capital will try to destroy any country, culture, ecosystem or set of beliefs that can’t be exploited, or that threaten it’s ability to exploit. It literally is a case of “you have to pick one, and only one can win.” Liveable planet, or capitalism. No other options, no way to avoid the choice. Not choosing is choosing.
If it wasn’t clear, I abhor this doomer mindset that benefits nobody except the class war leaders and weapons manufacturers. Not a single mention of improvement, only destructive hate and the naive intent that any of that leads to actual community in any participants. Hate binds a war like cult that has utterly forgotten about how humans can help each other and prosper from it. Choosing is choosing. Choosing a hateful side or the other hateful side and never thinking about your own ideas, needs of many, morals and ethics, or your own belief is utter disgrace and folly
That doomer mindset that benefits nobody except the oligarchs, the mindset of…pointing out that the oligarchs are oligarchs? Genuinely confused here. You seem to be interpreting physical observations are some kind of provocative personal statement. Slug and salt physically cannot coexist. Flame and gunpowder physically cannot coexist. Capitalism and a healthy, peaceful living world physically cannot coexist. Pointing this out is no more “hateful” than pointing out that 6 times 7 is 42.
Choosing a hateful side or the other hateful side and never thinking about your own ideas, needs of many, morals and ethics, or your own belief is utter disgrace and folly
The needs of the many is actually our whole thing here, and the thing about the needs of the many is that if you actually take it seriously, what usually happens is that the sideliners who have spent much less time examining the facts will call you hateful for pointing out that the hell empire built on mass-subjugation is unsurprisingly the primary obstacle to the world we want. And that a house with a rotten foundation stands no hope of reconstruction.
While bewildered, I really am trying to approach this openly, which is why ive gone back and softened a couple embarassing redditisms in the edit. So genuinely, and in a spirit of understanding: what is your critique of my assessment?
I have a cold and clear hate towards capitalism. It cuts surgically and makes a difference. Your screaming flailing buckshot is a good product for rage bait and political pundits to consume. Learn to not be an extreme capitalist creation that rolls around bouncing against it’s playground fence. The only game that wins is to not play and climb out. You afford no energy toward actual revolution or change or demand or function or policy or anything in this rant, and nobody that reads it is inspired to do it either. You benefit the status quo which is hyper capitalist. If your focus is destructive and nothing else, in an actual uprising you will not help and even hinder it’s progression. Nobody wants to dismantle only for dismantling, all persons need cause and just inspiration for the actual replacement that will stand in its place. 60% debating philosophy, 20% condemning 20% war cry. Take a small piece of policy and put it in there, and watch the change it makes. Then, swap out your statements incrementally until they are 100% policy. Replacement policy. This is a real path should you tire of trudging in this insane climate
Got it, content of critque=
Okay okay, for real. You seem to think that because I recognize the necessity of uprooting capitalism, I have nothing positive to replace it with? Cause brother lemme introduce a concept you may have heard of before;
I don’t think anything about you. I am critiquing what you are saying. It is a handful of childish statements and reveals a critical need for education
“Successes”?
Most of them are 3rd world countries because of these movements…
The few who succeeded only use “communism” as label but are aggressively balls deep into capitalism like China.
Oh looks, another example of the meme right here.
I dont oppose colonialism. Its anti-colonialism that have created the worst blood thirsty and arrogant country in the world with its Uber capitalistic ideology: The US… Should have the “US” remained into UK colonies, we would have a better and more peaceful world right now. Same could be sayed about Israël and China… Hmmm… I see a pattern here… One common things between these… UK!
The US was not an anti-colonial country; it was a british settler garrison that broke away in order to conquer the continent unhindered by British treaties with native peoples. Westward genocidal expansion and the theft of land were the goals.
The actual anti-colonialists in the revolutionary war (the indigenous peoples), rightly sided with the British in that conflict. Unfortunately their loss resulted in the decimation and near-genocide of hundreds of tribes. Sun-yat-sen and Ho Chi Minh and other revolutionaries were rightly scared that their countries would suffer the same fate.
I was aware of the atrocities and agreement violations, but not that perspective that colonials wanted to get free from any agreements the British did with the natives… Is that a common knowledge in the academia, disputed or a minority one? It is not to discredit it at all the idea, just to genuinely know its status at university level?
Lol biggest woooosh of all time xD
Biggest clown of all time
I dont oppose colonialism.
What an amazing self-tell.
I dont oppose colonialism
Oh! So you are just a Western colonist who spread the patronizing arrogance propaganda your “leftist” westerner compatriots are slopping up. The wall is that way, go face it!
Woooosh xD
Clown
Most of them are 3rd world countries because of these movements…
Lol. Name one country that went from first world to third world because of communist movements.
Easy, South Africa
surely this is a joke
Most of them are 3rd world countries because of these movements…
with perhaps the exception of south korea and with some good will taiwan, not a single capitalist country reached the so called “developed” status coming from underdeveloped. all of those who did received a downpour of american taxpayer money.
Most of them are 3rd world countries because of these movements…
There’s far too many of these to list, but lets take Vietnam and the DPRK as examples:
- Between 1963 and 1973, The US dropped ~388,000 tons of napalm bombs in vietnam, compared to 32,357 tons used over three years in the Korean War, and 16,500 tons dropped on Japan in 1945. US also sprayed over 5 million acres with herbicide, in Operation Ranch Hand, in a 10 year campaign to deprive the vietnamese of food and vegetation cover.
- US dropped large amounts of Agent Orange, an herbicide developed by monsanto and dow chemical for the department of defense, in vietnam. Its use, in particular the contaminant dioxin, causes multiple health problems, including cleft palate, mental disabilities, hernias, still births, poisoned breast milk, and extra fingers and toes, as well as destroying local species of plants and animals. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange.1, 2
- US Troops killed between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians, including women, children, and infants, in South Vietnam on March, 1968, in the My Lai Massacre. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated. Soldiers set fire to huts, waiting for civilians to come out so they could shoot them. For 30 years, the three US servicemen who tried to halt the massacre and rescue the hiding civilians were shunned and denounced as traitors, even by congressmen. 1
- In 1967, the CIA helped South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in villages, in the Phoenix Program. By 1972, Phoenix operatives had executed between 26,000 and 41,000 suspected NLF operatives, informants and supporters.1
Vietnam and the DPRK are absolutely success stories, for breaking their colonial chains, and defeating the most powerful and evil empire in history.
Alse China is not a capitalist country, its a mixed economy with the planned socialist sector predominant, and the communist party standing above the political system.
- The backbone of the economy is state ownership and socialist planning. 24 / 25 of the top revenue companies are state-owned and planned. 70% of the top 500 companies are State-owned. 1, 2 The largest bank, construction, electricity, and energy companies in the world, are CPC controlled entities, subject to the 5 year plans laid out by the central committee.
- Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
- Is modern day china communist? Is it staying true to communist values?
- Didn’t China go Capitalist with Deng Xiaoping? Didn’t it liberalize its economy? Is China’s drastic decrease in poverty a result of the increase in free market capitalist policies?
- Is the CPC committed to communism?
- The Long Game and Its Contradictions. Audiobook
- The myth of Chinese state capitalism. Did Deng really betray Chinese socialism?
- Tsinghua University- Is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics real socialism, or is it state Capitalism?
- Isn’t China revisionist for having a capitalist sector of the economy, and working with capitalists? Why isn’t it fully planned like the USSR was?
- Castro on why both China and Vietnam are socialist countries.
- Roderic Day - China has billionaires.
FYI i am currently working in Vietnam. Let me be clear: its a tourism country, corrupted and social programs are a joke compared to Europe… China is one of the worst countries in distribution of wealth. The communist country is a capitalist mafia ruling the country (and the party itself).
But yeah, i do agree, US is a dickhead country.
Communism is not, never was and will never be about socialism.
Like seriously, guess which country (the state itself) is spending the most of its GDP in social help? Not even the first one, look at the top ten. Guess what? None of them are communist countries or even had communist at the head of the state during their history…
Europe/US have social programs because they plundered other countries and continue to do so through financial mechanisms, which they built with plundered wealth, it’s idiotic to make this comparison.
Dang I didn’t know there were successful communist nations in developing countries.
What do you call Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, the former Burkina Fasso under Sankara, or the former USSR? Do you sincerely believe those countries had a better standard of living for all people, especially workers and peasants, under capitalism? Isn’t the great fall from grace of the USSR proof that the benefits their people had received were indeed the fruits of socialism and not the “rising tide” of global capitalist development (which was actually exacerbating poverty in the global South outside of the socialist countries)?
Maybe it’s just capitalist propaganda but from what I’ve heard, China is a mass surveillance state which doesn’t protect any of the citizens rights for privacy and has lacklustre working environments which is why everything is so cheap to be made there. Cuba is stuck with a poor economy, but I guess that’s all developing nations so i don’t know much other than that. For Vietnam my source is a friend who’s family mostly live in Vietnam, he says people in Vietnam dislike communism but can’t say it out loud. And I don’t know much about Laos or Burkina fasso.
To be clear I do consider myself a leftist and anti capitalist but I don’t believe there have been many properly successful socialist nations outside of Europe really.
don’t believe there have been many properly successful socialist nations outside of Europe
???
Dang I didn’t know there were successful communist nations in developing countries.
Funnily enough, two started off as developing and ended up as world superpowers.
… And a swing and a miss
…no? Pretty spot-on.
Why? What’s your wisdom you’d like to share with us socialists outside of the imperialist countries?
