Do you really understand class war? Your suggestion is having the state legislate this away as if the state isn't fully compromised by the capitalist class?
This is the main lesson of the 20th century that liberals refuse to accept; that the state is controlled by capitalist class interests. Capitalist democracy is a curated racket.
And even if we were to force legislation exactly as described above it can't and hasn't lasted long due to the incentives ($billions) to undo it. They will go as far as to kill people for this, and they have.
Legislation does NOT fundamentally change existing power relations. They have this shit in their pockets and you're just saying that we should have them take it out of their pockets.
The western allergy towards Marxism is one of the most detrimental cultural positions the working class has EVER faced.
Every state that has implemented marxist ideals has had their economy made up almost entirely of the state, that level of state oversight over the economy is just an extreme version of our current model of highly bureaucratic, bloated states where the owners/controllers over the means of production are syncronized with the state and its interests.
It was an ideology that at its height ruled a third of the world including some of the most populous and resource rich territories on earth yet still fell within decades.
The increased income inequality within much of the developed world has happened at the same time as ever increasing state influence over the economy.
My understanding of Marx was that he mostly just wrote books describing how capitalism works. Then guys like Lenin came afterwards and killed lots of people. What are Marxist ideals?
History shows that the "fundamental change to power relations" is just a shift from moneyed interests to political/bureaucratic interests. Which is worse because while moneyed interests have power money can buy, political/bureaucratic interests have the power of state coercion.
"They will go as far as to kill people for this" is rich coming from someone preaching Marxism, for which millions have been murdered.
This is a ridiculous oversimplification of complex historical processes. The biggest change to power relations by far were the bourgeois revolutions, which ostensibly shifted "political/bureaucratic" interests to "moneyed interests," which is quite literally the opposite of what you're saying. At any rate, the dichotomy is completely misleading since "moneyed" interests and "political/bureaucratic" interests are not at all mutually exclusive; in reality, they are virtually synonymous within the capitalist system. Also the notion that "moneyed" interests do not possess the power of state coercion must be some kind of perverse joke. Do you not even have a cursory knowledge of history? There are so many instances of money equating to state coercion that it's mind boggling anyone would say this with a straight face. Do you not know what a pinkerton is? Are you not paying attention to what the current president is doing both domestically and overseas? The idea that any advocate of capitalism would get on their high horse and moralize about Marxism is pathetic.
How is the government worse than the corporation or billionaire for coercion?
Libertarians always try to convince us that the corporate boot tastes so much better than the governmental one, but they both taste like leather to me and I at least have a say, however small, on the government.
In the west, the prevalent idea is that socialism/communism lost and that there is nothing beyond capitalism. This is it, we will forever live in a social-democracy state. I wonder who promotes this idea.
And it seems like the winners capitalism brought about don't actually care all that much about both "social" and "democratic" aspects of "social democracy", if they stand in the way of ever increasing wealth and power.
> In the west, the prevalent idea is that socialism/communism lost and that there is nothing beyond capitalism.
It didn't just "lose", it killed millions of its own people in the process. Having been born in a communist state, I'd rather clean toilets in American than do anything else in the USSR.
Edit: It's basically impossible to communicate the day-to-day misery and deprivation of late stage Communism without sounding like a crazy person. My parents were both university-educated professionals but we lived in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment with occasional hot running water and only newspaper for wiping after the bathroom. This was considered a rather affluent existence.
To find something similar in today's America you'd have to go to the worst, most impoverished parts of town and even then...
In the most impoverished part of my town (just kidding, in every part of my town) people live in the culverts that fill up with water when it rains. I am not sure what they do when it rains.
But why is it successful? Where did their money come from? How sustainable is it? The core issues from capitalism still exist there, but they have more money with a smaller population.
I think it helps to draw some distinctions here. Nordic countries have strong social welfare systems, but private property and free enterprise are still a thing. This is not at all the same as communism where everything is ultimately state owned and operated.
China is an interesting example too because it's basically capitalist with strong government oversight. So you can go hog wild on exploiting labor and amassing wealth as long as you don't oppose the overall goals of the government. We'll see how long they can keep it running - the problem with most authoritarian systems is that they're only as good as their current leadership, and when that changes things tend to fall apart.
I think basically capitalist oversimplifies a bit, both because private business holds no monopoly on exploitation of labor in any society, and because many of their large businesses are wholly owned by the state with the CEO appointed by the party. Here is an interesting interview on the subject with a relevant timestamp. https://youtu.be/e297mEZ479E?si=ASV_u9ZoN36wI4M5
The nuance that capitalist businesses do not hold an exclusive interest now or historical pioneering of labor exploitation is valuable to keep in mind because no matter how far the project of labor power spreads, all we workers must keep in mind that we have a primary and vested in empowering the most diminished of our society.
Ok, but you're not exactly a research sociologist, are you? It's not like you've made a study of poverty in America—let alone poverty on the imperial periphery, like El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras where we've been undermining democracy and labor rights in order to keep outsourced wages low. Now there are the places you can see real poverty that makes your Soviet austerity seem downright cosy.
So it's just not fair, your comparisons. You're not looking at the whole picture.
I think they mean, the USA (or capitalism in general) is currently killing millions of our own people.
We know how many people communism killed, but has anyone done the same math on capitalism? Maybe they're both very bad, and we have to find a third way.
Perhaps you haven't been paying attention to the skyrocketing prices of fuel, food, and healthcare... Or did you just think all those people just above the poverty line disappear when the livable income floor gets hydraulically jacked up?
Fair criticism of the USSR, but some the United State's success comes from taking a large chunk of land from the native populations and then using it's resources and geography to build an economy and military capable of enforcing it's policies in the Americas and eventually around the world. Some of which was sanctioning communist countries and fighting an expensive cold war against the USSR.
> The western allergy towards Marxism is one of the most detrimental cultural positions the working class has EVER faced.
And it's no surprise they took these positions, considering the FBI originally deemed the likes of "It's a Wonderful Life" as communist propaganda and claimed it "made bankers look bad."
> "What's interesting in the FBI critique is that the Baileys were also bankers," said Noakes. " and what is really going on is a struggle between the big-city banker (Potter) and the small banker (the Baileys). Capra was clearly on the side of small capitalism and the FBI was on the side of big capitalism. The FBI misinterpreted this classic struggle as communist propaganda. I would argue that 'It's a Wonderfil Life' is a poignant movie about the transition in the U.S. between small and big capitalism, with Jimmy Stewart personifying the last hope for a small town. It's a lot like the battle between Home Depot and the mom and pop hardware store."
Tangentially, this is also the reason why many forms of corruption can be done away with right now with modern technology.
Meaning that democratizing our existing political structures is a reality today and can be done effectively (think blockchain, think zero knowledge proofs).
On the other hand, the political struggle to actually enact this new democratic system will be THE defining struggle of our times.
Almost as if capitalism makes everything into a market, and the profits make it self sustaining.
How many will see the connections between this and our capitalist mode of production? Probably few since modern lit/news is allergic to systemic analysis.
The blatant flaws of capitalism can't be ignored for much longer.
All people in my extended family were Soviet scientists and engineers from multiple fields, and outside of experimental physics it was the same or worse. Same publish or perish pressure, same amount of fraud and lack of reproducibility. A ton of papers were made up. My father's lab lead was an absolute fraud (biochemistry), everybody knew that, and my father was unable to speak up until the late 90's.
When I was a kid I thought it was the issue with USSR rotting to the core (it was), but when it crashed and later when the web appeared, it became obvious that it's a common problem with academia and its incentives.
The only way to curb something like that is more democratization. Fraud is a common problem in any system anywhere. A reputation score on top would help, only if it can be kept democratically controlled.
There is no single solution, but public fund usurping is basically a law of capitalism, which is why I critique it in this context. Public money laundering is a developed industry in capitalism.
What I get from this is that the professional academic community -- as a whole -- has hit critical mass, which has produced a cottage industry of paper mills and fraudulent services to support said surplus.
Socialism wouldn't be the answer to this because socialism is famous for struggling with surpluses and shortages. All socialism would do is clamp down (hard) on academic's, which case you wind up with the famous shortage where not enough PHD's are available to produce research for an industry.
And that's not a problem specific to just socialism, that's the fallacy of central-planning. The US government clamped down on welfare fraud and the result were freak government social workers sniffing people's bed sheets and rooting through drawers and forcing everyone to document partners.
This is the situation where there needs to be a market correction because the alternative could be far worse.
It's the tax-payer funded business model, the NGO trap. Subsidies, grants, tax-breaks, credit, deductions, exemptions, etc. A whole class of profiteers live in this sector. Even though academia funding isn't strictly categorized as an NGO, it still fits/foots the bill. Public funding of private gains is the oldest trick in the book. Ask any capitalist, they know. And I'm not saying I'm against public funding, but this is often codified into a mafia of sorts when enough money flows through.
The real problem here is the fundamental lack of democratic control over our agencies. That our political organization is intensely lagging behind our productive organization. That our whole political will involves TRUSTING strangers to not be corrupt instead of directly democratizing these processes as much as possible.
But besides that, you cannot remove history from historical analysis. The reason socialism countries struggled in the beginning wasn't an inherent flaw in its organization, but the fact that they were under constant war war by capitalist countries through out their existence. Also keep in mind that most socialist countries did NOT have a whole section of the world where-from to extract riches through murder (S.America, Africa, Middle east, etc), like western capitalist countries had. This is convenient for you to ignore. Maybe because you don't know, or don't care about the super-exploitative history of these places and how they tie into western capitalism. But they are inherent to western wealth and these countries' whole history is struggle against this exploitation.
Not to mention that most of the countries on earth are capitalists and are very very very poor.
To add: Socialism has nothing to do with "clamping down" on X or Y industry, as you hypothetically claim would happen. Socialism is almost exclusively about removing the need to generate capital from production. It unleashes production from its historical ball and chain that is profiteering.
In a single sentence: Instead of production being held back by capitalists generating wealth we can produce for our own needs. It is self sustaining production.
Central planning is not fallacious. Your problem is with corruption, not democratic central planning. The US Govt is a pro-capitalist entity that pro-capitalists try to distance themselves from (ironically). So using them as an example isn't saying anything at all.
Central planning is not "allow a small group of people to decide things", as happens in the US Govt. Central planning is to take into account all sources of information on production to plan said production democratically.
This will always beat the highly highly inefficient speculation of capitalism. Where trillions vanish on a whim and cause of a tweet, where crisis occur every 8-10 years, and where its whole trade market is built to hide that it is mostly insider trading. Again, your problem is with corruption not democratic central planning.
And the way to deal with corruption is to create more democratic bodies where avg people hold real power. I don't see you asking for that either. We call that socialism.
Capitalism certainly is hugely flawed and yet it is far less flawed than any other economic system we know of. Experimentation with the foundations of society is about as risky as it gets. You could end up with a utopia or you could end up with another USSR. History tells us which outcome is more likely
People say that because they are not aware of what Marxism is.
Marxism isnt "lets try something different based on ideas of justice"
Marxism is "Society evolves through general stages: primitive, slave, feudal and capitalist, this is determined by the level production. Capitalism is holding back its current evolution into a society of plenty."
Good luck backing speculation and profit gatekept production.
Everybody hates capitalism, but no one understands that they do. What you promote as a solution is simply a pebble on the path of the people who want to capitalize.
There are 3 realistic scenarios for your proposed solution:
- it will not pass
- it will be reformed later, or, if successful
- it will just make the capitalists appear at another point in the supply chain
The capitalists design the business models (profit making schemes) and legalize them. This is not an organic development of an industry.
What you hate is capitalism and capitalism will do this to any industry wherever it can attain steady profits.
Many are protesting because of the sanctions, considered war crimes, imposed by the west onto them.
The US and its allies have attacked the currency and the availability of goods for the common Iranian. This is how regime change works. This is what is happening in Cuba as well. You starve and disenfranchise the average person to make regime change by internal bad-actors more successful.
Therefore many citizens protest against their conditions, not against their government. The misconstruing of this reality is intentional and an essential part of war mongering.
We understand this and we are smarter than the BBC thinks we are. Now ask yourself why must young Americans in the armed forces put their lives on the line for this?
While the sanctions may have triggered the current round of protests, what about the previous rounds? [1]
Why are you ignoring those?
Many Iranians hate their regime because it’s an oppressive theocratic one.
Just as an example of why Iranians would hate their regime, the mismanagement and corruption in the area of water management has led to severe water shortages in Tehran and other areas [2].
I believe I have a somewhat unique perspective on this as a communist.
Capitalist governments, even theocratic ones, are trash for the working class. That would explain those previous protests. Corruption is a totally normal thing in western countries as well. It just doesn't get broadcast in a politicized way, if at all, in our media. (not a coincidence)
Our local capitalist media jut makes it seem louder in certain places when there is an interest, such as the downfall of the Iranian state.
Is this sound enough logic for you to approve sending American kids to die over there?
Right, nothing can, but it is harder to corrupt when the state isn't a handful of people with shields of bureaucracy where access to power can only be attained by the richest individuals in that society.
Communism isn't "let the state do more things" as many think. Communism is "make all of the people into the state". Cut out the middle-man, so to say. Direct democracy, peoples councils, peoples courts, all with a worldview that keeps it that way; socialism/communism. It's intention, as a movement is to not to leave political power to an external organization. To organize your workplace, neighborhood, town and city, into its own political power.
I think it's right and honest to admit that this is one of the methods that sanctions are supposed to work. But it's also not the only method - and framing the intent as inducing "regime change by internal bad-actors" is also a very slanted way to articulate intent, as well as what is happening on the ground.
On the other hand, without being on the ground, we cannot really say what the real balance of grievances are.
"Sanctions" are just a sanitized way of saying "forced starvation" and "denying basic medical care" because that's what happens. For Cuba, this has been going on so long that the CIA documents about the effect of sanctions and a blockade itself has been declassified (in 2005) [1]. When faced with a UN report that estimated 500,000 children had been killed by US sanctions in 1996, then UN Ambassador and later US Secretary of State Madeline Albright famously said "the price was worth it" [2].
And sanctions don't actually work. Not against enemies anyway. Just like Cuba has endured 60+ years of sanctions and Russia has endured Ukraine-related sanctions, enemies have or build an economy to be resilient to the sanctions to the point that the regime survives, even thrives in the face of perceived exteranl threats.
Probably the only successful use of sanctions was South Africa. Why? Because apartheid South Africa was an ally so the BDS movement crippled the economy.
And most of the time sanctions have no other reason than the affected country dared to not be exploited by the West and Western companies.
Funny that this is downvoted. I guess its not fitting the mainstream 'feel good about ourselved, bad, bad, Iran' narrative. Just have a look at Besson's Davos interview.
You only think that because your political partisanship overwhelms your geopolitical knowledge. But sure, a country that is the primary funder of terrorism in the ME is doing nothing wrong.
They didn't, for instance, mess up the building of water infrastructure which is causing the taps to run dry in their capitol. Oh wait, they did. But since that has nothing to do with sanctions, you didn't hear about it because it doesn't fit a specific political narrative.
Also, apparently everyone in the world has the right to trade with the west, even if they are doing everything in their power to destroy the west.
Capitalism is the privatization of human needs. As long as these tech platforms are owned privately they will be used to police and make money.
This view NEEDS to be central to the tech freedom rhetoric, else the whole movement is literally just begging politicians and hoping corporations do the right thing... useless.
Aren't the politicians or their appointed bureaucrats who'd be making all the decisions if these needs were government owned? Why would state control lead to less policing? What incentive structure would lead to innovation without a profit motive, when even the modern communist world relies on capital markets?
> Aren't the politicians or their appointed bureaucrats who'd be making all the decisions if these needs were government owned?
Well that would be true under a capitalist government.
> Why would state control lead to less policing?
Its not just "the state runs it", its "we actively become the state".
Collective ownership through peoples councils, peoples courts with a world view that keeps it all open: socialism.
The world view of not allowing individual ownership over collective goods, the world view of socialism, is the life line of the movement. The actual practice of daily democracy, of running production and of deciding social functions is everyones responsibility and it should not be left to what has become a professional class of liars.
Public office members, which should only exist where absolutely necessary, should be locals and serve as messengers with 0 decision making power. All power should be in the local councils. We can mathematically implement this today (0 knowledge proofs).
Every single book on socialism is on theory and practices of acheiving this. Thats what the "dictatorship of the proletariat is", the dictatorship of working people, collectively.
> What incentive structure would lead to innovation without a profit motive, when even the modern communist world relies on capital markets?
We've been innovating for hundreds of thousands of years before capitalism. You dont need to generate money to innovate, the innovation itself is the driver, AKA a better life. No need to lock and limit production behind the attaining of profits of those who lead it.
A lot of people are allergic to this rhetoric and will just assume I have a deep irrational bias, but I was actually a staunch free market supporter before.
Once I decided to be more intellectually honest with myself and read more about what both sides meant historically and currently, it really just made sense.
I'm so exhausted of the partisan "my team vs your team" politics in the US that shuts down conversation, overlooks the blatant hypocrisies on either side, simplifies every issue to a single label to plaster on your opponent, etc etc.
I take honest conversation where I can get it, even when I don't agree. And to be clear I don't agree with most of your points and think it's idealistic and couldn't work in the real world. But I appreciate the spirit of what you're arguing for (in my interpretation) power with the people vs power with corporations and government and I think that's a very fundamental principle that is very important common ground.
If we force it upon them by begging politicians, corporations still have the incentive to find a way to remove it or circumvent it.
Youre playing the cat and mouse game because you've been taught that solving it is too extreme (thats not a coincidence).
We dont need to endlessly fight a whole class of people, capitalists, for them not to use the things we require against us. Only socialism can solve that.
Yeah, I’m amazed at how far the western surveillance apparatus has been able to coast on plausible deniability. Folks, please don’t stick your head in the sand domestically just because there’s an even more obvious or egregious example abroad.
Say it with me: “Living in a police state is bad no matter who’s running it”.
I'm just imagining the poor intern at the NSA having to sit in a dimly lit room with an array of 64 x 64 monitors mounted on a wall, watching the O-faces of thousands and thousands of fat, balding, middle age men for hours straight.
Capitalist profit motive strikes again. The invisible hand expands tech and the visible hand keeps making tech worse.
People usually respond to this by saying that it would be absurd to suggest the company did this for its own benefit, when anyone who engineers knows these are often caused by revising design to minimize costs... and increase profits.
Yes, because governments are so restrained in their use of propaganda.
What it is is the consequence of the power existing. 200 years ago nobody was arguing about how to hook people in the first 0.2 seconds of video, but it's not because nobody would have refused the power it represents if offered. They just couldn't have it. It's humans. People want this power over you. All of them.
The system incentivizes seeking power by consolidating financial wealth. It doesn't have to be that way & this will eventually become obvious to everyone.
To be fair, it is basically one and the same. I doubt most people railing against capitalism are actually against private property. They probably dislike corporatism which only exists as an extension of the government. Very very few of us voluntarily gave up our right to hold people personally responsible for their actions, but this is forced on everyone on behalf of business interests. The corporate vale is materialized from government alone.
> I doubt most people railing against capitalism are actually against private property. They probably dislike corporatism which only exists as an extension of the government.
I really don't know. In my experience, it can about private property when talking about housing, it is about markets when talking salaries and work conditions, and it's just about having no idea of what capitalism even is and just vaguely pointing at economics the vast majority of the time.
"Capitalism" can be safely replaced with "the illuminati" or "Chem trails" in the vast majority of complaints I hear and read and the message would ultimately make as much sense. There's not a lot of how or why capitalism doesn't work, but by God there sure is a lot of what it seemingly does wrong.
Just because you don't know what capitalism is, doesn't mean other people do not know.
Just because you only read sources from capitalist media platforms doesn't mean there isn't a lot of "how" or "why" capitalism doesn't work.
My main message was about the profit motive incentivizing the creation of addictions for the profit of tech companies. The invisible hand may expand the development of tech, but the visible hand needs to make people addicted and unhappy.
Think a little before you speak, please. Or read a little more.
As bad as things are, the excesses of capitalism pale in comparison to the excesses of communism or fascism. If you have a better system, please present it to the class.
Capitalism is known to have killed multiple billions world-wide.
Nearly all of the poor countries on earth are capitalist. World war 1 was a war of capitalist reorganization, Fascism was a capitalist economic system, therefore WW2 was initiated by capitalist nations. Nearly all wars being fought today are all fought by capitalists on both sides of the conflict. The poorest countries on earth are capitalists. Drug cartels are organization of drug manufacturing and transporting capitalists. Capitalist nations are proven to be the most corrupt countries on earth.
Capitalism has a vested interest in making nations poor for the sake of maximizing profits in resource extraction. Capitalism has waged more war and caused more destruction than any system before it and its only been around for ~400 years.
You really want me to believe that the system that makes money from doing heinous shit is good?
Look into the primary sources behind the things you believe to be true about communism. Many, many are very shaky and were just "cold" war propaganda pieces. I've done exactly that to come to my conclusions.
What I know to be communism, through research, and reading of primary sources, is just the natural conclusion of the democratization of society. People controlling the production they need through councils that they themselves organize into a peoples state.
This post perfectly proves my point, to which you replied "You are displaying your ignorance with pride.".
"Fascism was a capitalist economic system" or "Capitalism has waged more war and caused more destruction than any system before" are utterly ridiculous, evidently false statements. The only way you can ever say these things with a straight face is if you don't have the least idea of what capitalism even is.
I think you may be very shocked when you find out that you are wrong.
Fascism was an ideology developed by capitalist industrialists, specifically steel trusts in Germany. But had its birth amongst financiers in Italy. Henry Ford was a big proponent of fascism. Fascism did not undo any private property relations, it simply was a single party capitalist state. Ownership of companies was still private. If you were not ideologically or ethnically in line your property was taken away and given to someone who was. Any elimination of property rights specifically only applied to the political opposition, which is in line with repressive capitalism, not with socialism.
The control of market dynamics and labor was for the purposes of war and murder, not an ideological component of fascism. A similar thing happened in all countries who were at war: rationing, price controls, labor allocation, etc, but still capitalists.
The axis was specifically an anti-communist alliance through the anticomintern pact. They specifically wanted to uphold private property.
The ONLY reason that one German country had socialist in their name was to fool the masses. It was to appeal to the masses.
WW1 and WW2 were both started by capitalism. And most wars on going right now, feb 2026, are waged by capitalists factions on both sides.
The figures of death attributed to communism are widely known by academics to be absurdly and unscientifically inflated. The black book of communism is not considered history by historians. The gulag archipelago is not considered history by hostorians.
Why dont you see the black book of capitalism anywhere? There are millions of excuses for every death under capitalism. But there are billions of deaths under capitalism... and counting.
You may think I got here through some sort of unhinged bias or just wanting to go against the grain, but no, I got here through asking myself all these questions sincerely and researching them.
Do you mean "private property" or "personal property"? These are not the same thing, and those who want to scaremonger about non-capitalist modes of production like to conflate the two.
You've never heard someone say "under communism, private property isn't allowed, so you have to share a toothbrush?" I heard that nonsense all the time growing up.
Your toothbrush and clothing are personal property. The family farm is private property.
Corporatism is not a thing. Capitalists hold fundamental power over society, they collectively are the state.
They own the things the rest of the people need to survive. Assuming you are a worker/proletariat: Can you survive right now, today, without interacting with a capitalist entity?
Can you make your living as in food, money, housing, etc, right now, solely from your own property? Statistically not. Capitalists own most of what you require.
"Corporatism" is just capitalism. Capitalists use their media platforms to say the government oppresses them equally to us. When it is proven time and time and time again that they have almost total control and influence over the government.
And you buy the narrative.
There is no "pure capitalism", bro. Capitalism will ALWAYS evolve into this. It's baked into the rules. This is very plain to see.
Go to any main news platform, of any country, on the side of any political wing, of any other capitalist nation on earth and type "corruption" in the corresponding language. You'll be met with a flood of articles.
I am against private property of production, because I know the people who need said production can also democratically run it.
> Can you make your living as in food, money, housing, etc, right now, solely from your own property? Statistically not. Capitalists own most of what you require.
You can't survive from your own property in a communist society either because the state own all of it. Instead of power accruing in the hands of a few capitalists, it accrues in the hands of a few politicians/dictators. What's the fundamental difference here? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
This is false and not at all what I have researched and back as a communist.
In a communist society YOU control production through democracy. The whole point is for the people to be their own governing force. That is why communists mention "state control", but another, ultra important aspect that is conveniently not mentioned by capitalist propaganda, is council democracy.
You are your local state. You and your neighbors organized in a council form your local state.
You and your neighbors make sure that no single individual or minority controls your production.
YOU and your neighbors form your own executive, legislative and judicial branches.
This is in reality what communist literature is about. The american mind cannot comprehend democracy, i swear.
And if system were to results in a small group of people holding power and using production to make money, well, that would a capitalist system. Words have meaning.
Democracy is not based on trust, like the political system we have right now. Don't trust me, do your own god damned research. Don't trust millionaire connected politicians either. And don't trust capitalist media either. Democracy is based on control.
Well adjusted people so not want that power over other people
It's sociopaths and narcissists which want it.
And as Atlas667 pointed out, it's also a direct consequence from a capitalistic world view, where it has replaced your morals.
This is not in relationship to state propaganda. Multiple things can cause abhorrent behavior, and just because we've identified something as problematic doesn't inherently imply that other unrelated examples are any better.
"Well adjusted people so not want that power over other people"
There are certainly well adjusted people that would like to fix things they feel are inefficiencies or issues in their government, especially when those issues are directly related to their areas of expertise. Thinking well adjusted people wouldn't want to be in a position of power is exactly how you ensure that only bad people end up with power.
We've always had sociopaths and narcissists, and if you're looking to "capitalism" as the reason why they exist, you're in out-and-out category error territory, not-even-wrong territory. Now that this power exists to be had, human beings are racing to acquire it. If you think you can fix that by "fixing capitalism" you are completely wasting your efforts.
So if that’s not the answer, what is? Should we just throw our hands in the air and say that technology has defeated our monkey brains, and there’s no going back?
Given that these tendencies are not evenly distributed throughout the population, you can have structures that leverage the large mean to mitigate the worst tendencies of the extreme tails. Given that the natural state of things is that power begets more power, these are harder to build and maintain, but it can be done. In particular, Democracies and Republics are major historical examples of this.
People do have this power right now, they are called capitalists, they are a part of the tech/info/policing industry.
You don't have this control, I don't have this control. It's not humans in general, it's literally the capitalists. Right now, today. Try and "timelessly universalize" that.
It's the people who make money from this who want it.
I would rather that no one particular person or group of people have that much power, and I would rather help organize society to collectively and democratically decide what goes on with this tech but I guess that proudly makes me a communist.
History contains abundant, well-documented cases of ordinary people participating in atrocities without coercion. Most people will act decently in low-pressure environments and will act badly under certain incentives, authority structures, or group dynamics. There is no way to know what a person's threshold is until it's tested, but it can be assumed that most people have a low threshold.
That may be true but I think the unspoken assumption in your comment is that somehow, without capitalism, greed magically melts away. How do you explain the constant extreme rampant corruption in communist and socialist countries over 100 years if not from GREED?
I know that it doesn't. Greed will be ever-present, yes, but that doesn't mean that it's a one-way ratchet. It's something we have to keep fighting against all the time. Greed starts out as a driver of progress, then eventually becomes an impediment to progress. The other constant there is progress! No dam will block a river forever.
The definition of capitalism is the private ownership of production and its use to generate profits.
I think a coerced assumption you may have of capitalism is that corruption is an unintended side effect, but it actually follows from its principles.
How is a society to maintain unmarred democratic institutions when its elements are fundamentally unequal? Put more clearly: How can people have the same amount of political power when one class (capitalist) OWNS the production of what the other class (workers) need?
The mythology of capitalist society paints both them as equals and the state as neutral. This is a tactic to preserve the appearance of a democratic backbone. They afford this mythology because capitalists own the air waves and they have, and can have, the most influence in the state. In fact, due to this fundamental inequality capitalists are, for all practical purposes, capitalists are the state.
Capitalist societies put political power up for auction; Corruption has its highest manifestation within capitalist societies.
Now to your point. Greed will never "magically melt away". Greed can only be controlled through democratic control of what permits greed in the first place.
Communism/socialism isn't about magically doing or undoing anything, it's the science of creating firm and unalienable working class power. It must start with democratic control of production and local peoples councils. Greed will not magically melt away, greed must be constantly cut out by everyone by everyone HAVING the political power to cut it out. This means peoples councils will be convened at the neighborhood level, peoples courts will be manned, not by professional judges, but by rotating locally elected citizens. Council delegates will be bound by law to only, and exclusively, be messengers at higher level councils, etc. This is just a small picture of what democracy is. It is not me to say specifically how, of course, but communism does not involve blindly and powerlessly trusting political candidates, like capitalist society requires.
There is a reason communism is demonized by the people who control our society.
This is the main lesson of the 20th century that liberals refuse to accept; that the state is controlled by capitalist class interests. Capitalist democracy is a curated racket.
And even if we were to force legislation exactly as described above it can't and hasn't lasted long due to the incentives ($billions) to undo it. They will go as far as to kill people for this, and they have.
Legislation does NOT fundamentally change existing power relations. They have this shit in their pockets and you're just saying that we should have them take it out of their pockets.
The western allergy towards Marxism is one of the most detrimental cultural positions the working class has EVER faced.
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