• Cowbee [he/him]
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    3 months ago

    It also ignores that Socialism in AES states has generally resulted in mass reductions in poverty, increases in literacy, education, home ownership, and life expectancy.

      • AntiOutsideAktion
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        3 months ago

        You’re a fucking idiot if you think the problem with those countries is communism and not unceasing imperial violence targeted at them from the global core of wealth and fascism.

        But even living under conditions of siege warfare they still manage to provide housing and healthcare to their people which make them objectively better places to live than the US, which deliberately keeps a large population homeless because of the coercion it creates for the working class.

      • Cowbee [he/him]
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        3 months ago

        Do you think changing Mode of Production magically transforms levels of development? Typical liberal.

        • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Perfect, no response except to throw a question and “insult”

          This is why you won’t be taken seriously ever.

          • Cowbee [he/him]
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            3 months ago

            I already answered you, living in the US is currently better than some AES states, because development isn’t something magical. However, I would absolutely pick an AES state over the US in the comimg years. Hell, the PRC is in many ways ahead of the US for the average worker already.

            • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              Serious question because it is relevant to the discussion, do you currently have a job?

              Do you live in one of these western countries?

              What is your personal frame of reference that tells you you’d have a better life than where you are in Cuba or Laos or North Korea?

              What would china give you right now that you would move there for?

              Please, be specific so I can understand.

              Pretend you had a chance to convince me instead of angrily and frustratedly arguing your point in a defensive manner.

              I believe in socialism, it’s been incorporated into democracy quite well actually and provided significant quality of life for its citizens.

              Communism on the other hand has largely always moved to an authoritarian beat, China and Laos and Cuba and North Korea are all prime examples of this in the present day. Much like the two party system in the USA has hindered its democracy I don’t see how a one party system with strong central rule is not a HUGE step back from that. At least we have a semblance of choice and the mechanisms to fix what is broken.

              Why do you prefer a form of government that takes choice away from its citizens?

              • Why do you prefer a form of government that takes choice away from its citizens?

                We don’t, we support proletarian democracy, not bourgeoisie electoralism.

                Anna L. Strong, This Soviet World, Chapter III: The Dictatorship

                The heads of government in America are not the real rulers. I have talked with many of them from the President down. Some of them would really like to use power for the people. They feel baffled by their inability to do so; they blame other branches of government, legislatures, courts. But they haven’t analyzed the real reason. The difficulty is that they haven’t power to use. Neither the President nor Congress nor the common people, under any form of organization whatever, can legally dispose of the oil of Rockefeller or the gold in the vaults of Morgan. If they try, they will be checked by other branches of government, which was designed as a system of checks and balances precisely to prevent such “usurpation of power.” Private capitalists own the means of production and thus rule the lives of millions. Government, however chosen, is limited to the function of making regulations which will help capitalism run more easily by adjusting relations between property and protecting it against the “lawless” demands of non-owners. This constitutes what Marxists call the dictatorship of property. “The talk about pure democracy is but a bourgeois screen,” says Stalin, “to conceal the fact that equality between exploiters and exploited is impossible. . . . It was invented to hide the sores of capitalism . . . and lend it moral strength.”

                EPUB

                  • During the Stalin years in the Soviet Union

                    Let us take first the formal facts of voting, though this is far from exhausting in the Soviet citizen’s participation in government. The Soviet Union has today the largest body of voters any where in the world. Moreover a larger percentage of them come out to elections than in any other country; they give more time to their elections and decide a greater variety of questions.
                    All “toilers” over the age of eighteen may elect and be elected; the word is interpreted to include students, housewives, old people who have passed the age of work as well as those more formally known as workers. Voting thus extends to a younger age than is common elsewhere, and there are no disqualifications for transient residents, paupers, migratory workers, soldiers, sailors, such as exist in most countries; even non-citizens may vote if they work in a Soviet industry. There are no restrictions for sex, creed or color, nor even for illiteracy. The only significant restriction relates to “exploiting elements,” but the steady decrease of privately owned enterprises has cut the disfranchised to 2.5 per cent of the population in the 1934 elections; by 1937 it is expected that all will have the vote. In the 1934 elections 91,000,000 people were entitled to vote, and of these 77,000,000, or 85 per cent, actually participated, which is double the proportion found in most countries.

                    Several elections which I attended will show concretely how soviet democracy functions. Four election meetings were held simultaneously in different hamlets of Gulin village, which had no assembly hall big enough for all. One of these meetings threw out the Party candidate, Borisov, because they felt that he neglected their instructions; they elected a non-Party woman who had displayed energy in improving the village and were praised by the election commissioner—himself a Party member—for having discovered good government timber which the Party had neglected. The central meeting in Gulin expected 235 voters; 227 appeared and were duly checked off by name at the door. There ensued personal discussion of every one of nine candidates, of whom seven were chosen. Mihailov “did good work on the roads.” The most enthusiasm developed over Menshina, a woman who “does everything assigned her energetically; checks farm property, tests seeds, collects state loans.” Dr. Sharkova, head of the Mothers’ Consultation, was pushed by the women: “We need a sanitary expert to clean up our village.” The incoming soviet was instructed to “increase harvest yield within two years to thirty bushels per acre, to organize a stud farm, get electricity and radio for every home, organize adult education courses, football and skiing teams, and satisfy a score of other needs.

                    Anna L. Strong, This Soviet World, Chapter IV: The Growing Democracy

              • Cowbee [he/him]
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                3 months ago

                Serious question because it is relevant to the discussion, do you currently have a job?

                Yes, full-time, though the plight of the unemployed and unhoused is equally important. Not telling you any more, not doxxing myself. Additionally, it absolutely is not relevant.

                Do you live in one of these western countries?

                Yes.

                What is your personal frame of reference that tells you you’d have a better life than where you are in Cuba or Laos or North Korea?

                The US is a dying Empire. It has no long-term future, conditions are worsening. Disparity is rising and will continue to do so, and Real Wages will continue to stagnate. The world is already throwing the US off their backs at increasing rates.

                Meanwhile, Socialism has stable growth over time that doesn’t depend on self-destructive systems like Capitalism or Imperialism.

                I believe in socialism, it’s been incorporated into democracy quite well actually and provided significant quality of life for its citizens.

                Social Democracy is not Socialism. I am not talking about Capitalism where “the government does some extra stuff.” Social Democracy in the Global North depends on Imperialism to support itself, and worker protections are crumbling as disparity rises. Social Democracy is a temporary concession.

                Communism on the other hand has largely always moved to an authoritarian beat, China and Laos and Cuba and North Korea are all prime examples of this in the present day. Much like the two party system in the USA has hindered its democracy I don’t see how a one party system with strong central rule is not a HUGE step back from that. At least we have a semblance of choice and the mechanisms to fix what is broken.

                Do you actually know how these countries function, democratically and politically? This isn’t a gotcha, I want to know to what extent you’re familiar so we can even begin to talk about them. Even then, North Korea isn’t a One-Party State.

                Why do you prefer a form of government that takes choice away from its citizens?

                I don’t, that’s why I am a Communist and not a Liberal. Come on, this was a useless gotcha.

                • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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                  3 months ago

                  In what communist nation are there free elections?

                  I don’t understand this mental gymnastics.

                  You’re talking about the benefits of socialism while advocating for communism but my questions have been about communism.

                  In what communist nation do you have free elections?

                  In what communist nation do the people actually choose their leadership, instead of a “elite (but remember communism is supposed to be classless…) group that elects the leaders”?

                  Communism is a novel idea BUT it hasn’t done a very good job demonstrating its benefits to the world. That’s the unfortunate reality of the situation.

                  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆M
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                    3 months ago

                    If only you spent even a fraction of time you’ve spent trolling here actually educating yourself on the subject.

                  • Cowbee [he/him]
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                    3 months ago

                    All of them practice democracy. What do you mean by “free?” Is that a vibe, where if Socialist = false, Capitalist = true?

      • davelA
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        3 months ago

        Europe is socialist

        The very first sentence from Wikipedia: Socialism

        Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.

        Who owns the means of production in Europe? The capitalist class, same as in every other capitalist state. Social welfare under capitalism is not socialism.

        what communist Russia had was a totalitarian government

        I already covered this elsewhere in this post.

        Go pound sand you ducking idiot.

        We’re done here.

      • Cowbee [he/him]
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        3 months ago

        Europe is Capitalist and Imperalist. What the USSR had was Socialism.

        Please explain exactly why you think Europe is “Socialist,” lmao.

        • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Even if you hate communism, calling the EU socialist is hilarious. Seems a lot of people in this thread have never even read a basic dictionary definition for socialism. I am surprised the people replying to you even know there is supposed to be a difference between socialism and communism.

          • Cowbee [he/him]
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            3 months ago

            Legitimately frustrating. As a Communist, I try my best to help people understand just what these terms actually mean, and explain why people such as myself support Communism, but there are people that cling to nonsense definitions and shroud themselves in mystery.