• mea_rah@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    This is the problem with people promoting socialism. They tend to compare idealized version of socialism with real version of capitalism. And such comparison inevitably leads to unrealistic conclusions.

    The problem is that real version of socialism is what you see in China or Cuba or former USSR. The argument with “we haven’t done socialism right” is the same as “we haven’t done capitalism right”.

    I have been born in socialist country and to this day I can see negative consequences of that era. And the obvious reason why ideal socialism can’t exist - people. Same reason why capitalism sucks.

    Edit: To people downvoting me: Your fake internet points have no meaning, but I love the irony of it. You can’t even keep the illusion of classlessness and equality in an internet thread, yet you are somehow convinced you could run a country like that. You’d be locking people for life in your communist paradise just for having different opinion and you know it.

    • CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Definition of Socialism: the workers own the means of production.

      Which country were you born in where you owned the means of production?

      • mea_rah@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I was born in country where intellectuals were in jail and uneducated workers were put to management positions, because they should own the means of production or some bullshit like that. You can imagine the end result of that.

        And again, this is the same “that wasn’t true socialism” argument. Obviously it wasn’t. The socialism as per your definition can’t exist on a country level. You can see it being implemented on a small company level (think family owned businesses) but the bigger it gets the more the cracks show and it just does not scale.

        • frezik
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          11 months ago

          You don’t need money going to shareholders in order to scale. You need management structure. Even anarchists would say they’re against unnecessary hierarchy, and at least a little structure is generally necessary. Top management does not need to be paid 300-to-1 over the average worker. Nor do they need to specifically represent shareholders, which is what a CEO is.

          • mea_rah@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Right but as soon as you have hierarchy, you have classes. You can have hierarchy in family owned business and it can work with everyone doing their best for the good of the business/family. But these social structures fall apart as the hierarchy grows bigger. And very soon what’s good for your family is not necessary good for the business - including non-monetary stuff like how much time you spend working or how hard your job is. Notice how there’s not a single CEO or shareholder in the picture and the system is already falling apart.

            There is this famous saying from communist times: “If you’re not stealing, you’re stealing from your family” That pretty much sums it up.

            You can’t have working socialism with humans, because the system is inhuman by its very nature. (and I don’t mean it in bad way even if the consequences end up being really nasty for many human beings)

      • frezik
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        11 months ago

        Interesting tidbit I picked up on an Andrewisim video recently: organizations from the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist branch of the left are particularly vulnerable to falling into cult behavior. It’s a reason to consider the whole branch to be bad and cut it right off. If not that far, then at least view organizations from that branch with a lot of criticism.

      • mea_rah@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Yes, exactly it always fails, because it just does not scale. It’s an idea, that can’t exist in reality on a country level. You can point to Freetown Christiania as an example - a small anarchist commune, that already shows some major cracks in its structure. I mean, just grow family business a bit and you can already see structures and hierarchy emerging.

          • mea_rah@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Yeah that one is probably closest. Still pretty far from socialism and held together by military with child soldiers.

              • mea_rah@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Thanks for detailed reply. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. It certainly wasn’t well written comment. Apologies.

                What I failed to convey is that IMO this is not best example as It’s a community stuck between rock and a hard place. A lot of what it is right now seems to exist out of necessity. Which makes me wonder how well would it work if there were other realistic options that aren’t absolutely horrible.

                Like if you lifted the entire land and dropped it in the middle of the EU with free market and mobility, would it still exist? I don’t think it would. For the same reasons I mentioned earlier.

                  • mea_rah@lemmy.world
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                    11 months ago

                    if they manage to do it between a rock and a hard place, the system itself is plenty stable enough to work under better conditions

                    That’s like saying that if fusion manages to happen in the middle of the sun, surely it can happen in my living room.

                    if you somehow teleported it over it wouldn’t regress politically – what would be the reason for people to allow that?

                    Why wouldn’t they? If my family is about to starve and most import and export is blocked, sure I will work on a farm to sustain our community, because ultimately that also feeds my family and I don’t have the option to seek better job somewhere in EU.

                    If there is no ISIS on the border trying to murder me, why should I accept that the farm that belonged to my family for generations was collectivized and I’m working on it for a tiny share rather than benefiting from all it can produce?

      • mea_rah@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Well at least they have the right to (down)vote then. That isn’t that common in the socialist paradise last time I’ve checked. 🤣