The sidebar says all cops are bastards, but since most people here are leftists, what makes cops in socialist countries different? If most people here support socialist cops, then shouldn’t it be all capitalist cops are bastards?
shouldn’t it be all capitalist cops are bastards?
Yeah, I agree. Cops are violent agents of the ruling class. When that ruling class is white supremacist and capitalist, as in Europe and its white settler states, the cops use violence in the interests of white power and property.
A socialist country will have an armed proletariat organized as its ruling class for as long as it is in danger of a bourgeois counterrevolution. Cops in those states will use violence in the interests of the workers. Cops in Hong Kong defending the rule of the people from US-funded rioters are doing important and necessary work.
shouldn’t it be all capitalist cops are bastards?
This 100%. Cops as a concept enforce the interests of the state. When its a capitalist state, they enforce capitalist interests, when its a worker’s state, they enforce workers interests.
Check out this video of some traffic cops from China in the 1970s. Observe how different their demeanor and perspective is from capitalist cops. They are out there to protect and serve the people.
what makes cops in socialist countries different?
The police in Socialist states tend to actually give a shit about helping their communities, there are countless stories of westerners meeting with the police in Socialist countries (most of the stories I’ve heard are of the USSR and Cuba) and getting an entirely different attitude from the police than they were used to.
Here’s a secondhand account told to me firsthand by a comrade who visited Cuba, his rent-a-car broke down a few miles outside of Havana and not knowing what to do, he called for help. The police were there in minutes, didn’t keep him waiting. He didn’t speak much Spanish, so the cops tried their best to pigeon-speak with him. The cops actually put in the effort to figure out what was wrong, and once they realized what he already knew, they gave him a ride back to the city. And, most importantly, they never stopped being nice to him - an obvious foreigner in their country.
If you check the rules in this community you’ll find rule three; “No defense for the police. Yes all cops, they’re tools of the bourgeois state.” Saying anything less than “all cops” only gives asshats the leeway to say “oh, well, my cop uncle isn’t a bastard, he doesn’t agree with corporatism” or “oh, my cop uncle isn’t a bastard, he’s nice to his community”. But, pay attention to the “tools of the bourgeois state” part, because cops of proletarian states are thusly tools of the said proletarian state, and so aren’t subject to the same counter-citizenry organizational structure. That doesn’t automatically mean cops in the USSR or China aren’t bastards, but it does mean they likely weren’t.
Socialist countries (most of the stories I’ve heard are of the USSR and Cuba)
In my pov those countries are considered to have/had a communist regime. Socialism is more what you’ll find in almost every EU country, where the police is an important asset of society. Cases of police violence and abuse of power like we often see in the US are very rare, and they mostly end up bad for the perpetrators. We rely on them for safety, since their influence most of the times deters crime, they’re also important to maintain order. But in everyday life they help people in trouble, accidents, natural catastrophe, even help you to change the tire of your car. One time me and two friends were caught with 100grams of weed, after checking our ID’s, we’ve told them that I’ve got it for a weekend of pizza and videogames, they’ve made us burn it on the ground, and send us home. I was expecting a weekend in jail, judge on monday, and be reported has a drug user on my criminal record.
Socialism =/= succdems
I think the “bastardness” of cops is in direct correlation with inequality: more inequality invariably means more brutality is needed to enforce that inequality.
As an anarchist, I’m skeptical of the notion of “socialist states” since in my books socialism is worker ownership of the means of production. The state might claim that it represents the will of the workers, and so state ownership is the same as worker ownership, but believing that claim is incredibly naive imo.
