Do you think socialists are out to collectivize your toothbrush?

No, the siezing of factories and large estates is not equivalent to siezing your sewing needles or your backyard garden. They seize these means of production because their previous ownership was about denying people access to the means of production, not because they don’t think individuals should have their own means of production.

Please enlighten me what the substantive difference between ‘industrial scale’ and ‘systematic and widespread’ is.

Literally the difference between the holocaust and a pogrom.

Similarly, please point out to me what your exact issue is with the report I linked.

A lack of institutional credibility and an unwillingness to read a 20 page report that references things that have already been debunked- for example, i took a vertical slice to dig into, looking in detail about their claims of abducted children that do not align with the reality of later western-biased reporting on the issue.

Also, citation needed that Zenz is a fascist. I found much criticism of him, but no credible allegation that he is a fascist.

He describes himself as a “Christian Nationalist” and “on a God given mission to destroy China” and his institute used to be a cia front (arguably still is, although it has now been obscured through another front organization) If he isn’t a fascist, he is close enough to the picture that he still isn’t credible.

At their heart, both capitalism and marxism are ideologies describing how things “ought to be.” Proponents of either of them seek to influence political decision making around economic decisions, but neither is/was/will be reality.

No, Marxism does not just describe things as they ought to be. It’s main aspects are:

Anthropological: a methodology for understanding how capitalism happens and how it changes to suit changing conditions (many of which it brings about)

Scientific: a process based ideology for developing an understanding of our local conditions and our ability to change them through sociological investigation, mediated through democratic process

The political program extends from an understanding of those two aspects, and is very variable, because the programs are applied to the local conditions of their environments.

Capitalism postulates that all capital ought to be privately owned and working in individual interest,

No, that strain of bourgeois thought died out as a ruling ideology hundreds of years ago, when state intervention in some failed ventures if the west indies trading company demonstrated that it is more profitable for capitalism to maintain a strong state to protect profits.

Communists dismiss this by pointing out that inequal access to capital causes internal problems in society,

I mean yeah but that’s not the main thing. The main thing that Marxists believe is that as capitalism moves into its monopoly stage, it ceases to be a historically progressive force (in opposition to feudalism) and it starts to be fettered by its own issues, just like feudalism was.

Marxists believe that as production becomes socialized and planned, capitalist control makes these socialized production processes inefficient and ultimately leads to a cycle of crises.

Continue, you only have several more claims that aren’t cited. For example, the use of language “industrial scale” for torture.

Also please keep in mind that this isn’t a high standard of evidence, as UN reports often are influenced- such as the significant citations of the German fascist Adrien Zenz in some of their reporting on China.

And the Olympic gold for comically missing the point by getting strangely defensive goes to…

I’ve found no UN reports detailing activities such as those on an industrial scale. Please cite the UN reports.

“Save lives” are you dense? Russia is kidnapping, torturing, killing and deporting Ukrainians in the occupied regions on an industrial scale.

Serious citations needed. Please do not spread atrocity propaganda in this comm.

The former option. Why, would you pick the latter option?

Sure, but it is incentivized by capitalism as a real system that exists and is studied. It doesn’t have to exist in capitalist theory for it to be a real phenomenon that has be empirically proven.

One of the most basic economic arguments of Marx’s Capital is that 1) firms compete for higher profit margins 2) it is easiest to reduce wages in order to increase margins 3) you only have to pay workers enough that they’re able to, as a whole, maintain your workforce (the available workforce in general can shrink though, especially as automation shrinks the needed size of the workforce)

Throw in some accumulation by disposession theory(the need to proletarianize the population, separating them from ownership of their own means of subsistence) in order for capitalism to function, and you have good old social murder, the end result of a system designed for efficient accumulation without consideration for human suffering outside the practical consideration of stability.

Socialism, which is designed to manage the needs of a population through democratic processes, does not have this issue, except in the context of fighting capitalism where accumulation needs to be prioritized to some extent, in order to defend their social project from covert and overt hostility by existing capitalist powers.

I’ve cited Capital, you only really need the first dozen or so chapters to understand the primary argument. Marx provides detailed figures to cite his arguments. I would also suggest reading about accumulation by dispossession/primitive accumulation, social murder, and siege socialism.

Because killing people through neglect can improve the efficiency of your workforce

Okay, so are you not able to or not willing to answer the question of “what has to happen for you to start giving a shit?”

Do you not understand that this topic includes democratic politicians straight up being collaborators, and how that might be relevant to the argument you’re trying to make?

The immediate alternative was still worse.

This is right after the election.The immediate alternative is that democrats don’t fucking cave on whether they should take part in genocide, when taking part in that genocide is actually incredibly unpopular with voters.

When do you plan on actually contributing to an alternative?

Seriously, what concrete things need to happen before you’re like “a better world is worth taking risks for”?

You said:

In the meantime: this is the hole we are in. Act accordingly.

AKA “I’m acting like this reality is inescapable”

And also:

If you could actually fucking do that, I would welcome it with open arms.

AKA “I’d love it if someone were to do the work for me”

As we all know, systemic forces can not be worse than being robbed at gunpoint.

You do understand that fucking holocaust survivors have called this anti-trans push genocidal, right? Democrats who are also pushing it are also pushing extermination.

whenever someone tells you to stop letting outright fascists take power

Read Fascism and Social Revolution by R. Palme Dutt

Read Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism by A Sohn-Rethel

Then tell me that it is possible to keep fascism out of power through voting.

So what are you doing right now to fight fascism? If the answer doesn’t include being active in a socialist organization, the only people that historically have been effective at opposing fascism, then the answer is effectively “diddly-squat”, and you should get your ass in gear.

Someone saying “your access to lifesaving medication or your life” is functionally the same thing as them saying “your life (slow) or your life (fast)”

So your solution to getting out of the hole is to pretend like the hole is inescapable until someone else does the work? Isn’t that kind of cowardly?