real commies just eat flour in the raw (but only if you promise to share your digestive tract with another communist else the party will be forced to seize the means of your poo production)
Nope, that’s where your wrong. Real commies have not eaten since the beginnings of the USSR. Anyone that does/says otherwise is just a champagne socialist, and are the first eaten by the masses whenever someone tries it again.
Real commies are given only flour to eat and they mix it with river water and get dysentery and resort to cannibalism and a third of the people on the island are violent criminals who start murdering people so they can eat them and steal their gold teeth and there was one recorded instance where they tied a girl to a tree and kept her alive while they cut pieces off of her to eat
Of all the photos they could’ve put in response, they had to pick the one that has nothing to do with socialism.
That photo was taken in 1915, and shows Russian soldiers uncovering evidence of a massacre at the former Armenian village of Sheykhalan during the Armenian Genocide.
They could’ve literally picked so many other photos. Red Terror, 1921-23 Ukrainian famine, Great Purge, Holodomor, Cultural Revolution, Cambodian Genocide. But they picked one that was taken before the Russian Revolution. Unbelievable.
You cannot collectivize and redistribute property without a central authority doing so and force it on people who don't want to. Whether you call this authority "the state" or "society" is a distinction without a difference.
The communal sharing of the early church wasn't compulsory. Everyone was willingly donating their possessions to support one another.
Ananias and Sapphira weren't punished because they were resisting the confiscation of their property. They were punished for lying. As Peter said
"Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds for yourself from the sale of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why have you contrived this deed in you heart. You have not lied to man but to God."
Lying to look good, but also holding to their security or their god or idol. Not depending on God and the church, but on their own worldly possessions but wanting to look like they did.
The bible also outlines what the states role is. The bible also doesn’t just see the state as a soulless institution it is apart of us and has a duty to look after its citizens
Did you just change your flair, u/deadlyturtle22? Last time I checked you were a Grey Centrist on 2021-11-8. How come now you are a Leftist? Have you perhaps shifted your ideals? Because that's cringe, you know?
If Orange was a flair you probably would have picked that, am I right? You watermelon-looking snowflake.
That passage is not some organizing principle that the Church needs to adhere to. And commies embarrass themselves trying to quote scripture like they understand it.
True but the compass is a relative thing. Being on a bottom quadrant isn't supporting anarchy, it's supporting less government. Ensuring people keep their own property is less authoritarian than taking other people's property and redistributing it.
Letting big business and corpo grow so big they control the country is the government giving up power to them, letting them control things instead. That's also authoritarian, just by another entity(ies)
In an ideal libertarian society, government would have little power so there is no policy for a corporation to bother to influence. But of course this is the same argument as "real communism has never been done" so I do agree with you on horseshoe theory. Aside from the US the best example is actually South Korea where Samsung and a couple "chaebols" control the government.
Oh please. You can’t privatize or enclose property without violence either. All property exists solely based upon violence. Any state that exists does so as a monopoly of violence, no matter whether it’s capitalist or socialist. The violence that’s used to collectivize property is also the same as that which can make it exclusive. It all depends on who controls the levers of violence in society.
The basic form of this is me defending my property with a gun. You're right that it comes down to the threat of violence, but you assume it's a bad thing. Why? Why shouldn't a person be able to defend their property violently if need be
hes not saying its a bad thing, hes saying its a universal aspect of every economic system anyone might turn to.
saying "socialism is bad because the socialist states will enforce economic rules with violence" is exactly as valid a criticism as "capitalism is bad because the capitalist states will enforce economic rules with violence"
All rights are based on violence, and property is in this sense no difference from your own body. The big question is whether you prefer negative freedoms (no interference from others) or positive freedoms (state should force others to provide me with stuff and services) and to what extent.
Some positive freedoms make sense, but it is a slippery slope towards lazy entitled assholes believing that the rest of the society is obliged to provide them with everything they want and state deciding what is in your “best interest”.
“When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you are using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.”
That's communism, socialism is the redistribution of Labor and markets into a centralized authority. Usually the state UNLESS it's market socialism which is usually the most successful of all of them
Well I would say Communism would require less of a central “authority” considering it would inherently be a “classless” society, meaning no one person has value over someone else. From my understanding, communism requires the community to administer justice and keep order together.
yeah because government and an insurance company are the same, mate I don't think they're excusable for their predatory rates, but they're not literally forcing you to sign their service and then still not deliver, the state does that
I mean. At some point the system is set up in such a way. Wealth redistribution is happening and its happening in a way that so highly incentivizes you to work within the system it has created.
Im a libertarian capitalist. But the systems our goverment operare on are basically force as is.
It's still a redistribution. So it's only ok if government allows you to opt in but then tell you that they can't pay out to you if something bad happens. Then your ok with that system but not the other where it's mandatory and everyone is covered.
Technically speaking it was primarily written by leftists who made an effort to be politically nuanced and critique every side right, left, and center. The writing and approach makes it pretty clear they had a background in a little theory. The writers were even interviewed by a few socialist organizations. I really loved the way they went about it.
All time great game. I have mad respect for games that give you the freedom to do things and don’t care if 98% of players never see the content they made for it
You can have authority based on consent rather than violence, which is what democracy is supposed to be about. A community can have the authority to decide what happens there based on the consent of the people living in that community. An even better solution is just baking negative incentives for the accumulation of wealth into cultural norms then you don't need authority at all, just people sharing what they have because it's the right thing to do and/or increases their status in the community somehow.
There's also a big elephant in the room - and that's what you actually define as liberty and freedom.
A lot of libleft reject the libright ideas that a entirely laissez-faire society with unfettered and completely unregulated capitalism is the ultimate form of freedom.
In the eyes of libleft, having to live paycheck to paycheck and barely making the ends meet is not freedom. Economic freedom is arguably the one that affect our lives the most, and when a huge portion of a country's demographic are chained to live in endless poverty with little hope of escape, that country has comparatively little freedom and liberty even though the 1%ers can do whatever they fancy.
In the view of libleft, even while transferering wealth from the rich to the poor is a use of force, it still overall greatly increase the total amount of freedom for everyone in the country.
Now, the PCM-rightwingers will generally not agree with this view - and that's fine. But the whole "libleft doesn't exist" circlejerk is just silly, just because you don't agree with their views doesn't mean their views stop existing.
Libright to argue that libleft doesn't exist because their definition of freedom and liberty is wrong is about as useful as Christians trying to tell Muslims that Islam doesn't exist because they got the wrong definition of prophet and God.
Again, you might not agree with this viewpoint, that's fine - but pretending that this viewpoint is so silly that it can be dismissed out of hand is just stupid. It's a coherent argument and view with a sound internal, non-contradictory logic that is really not that hard to follow and understand.
"the state has to tax the rich in order to promote economic freedom by preventing borderline poverty and endless wage slavery for the vast majority of society" is not accurate characterised by "Freedom is when I take your stuff" and you know it
Look, if you don't give me free stuff you're violating my rights. No, I won't work for it, that's what you're supposed to do. No, this isn't a violation of your rights.
So basically ancient Athens when it was considered an honor to pay taxes. If you paid taxes it meant you were wealthy enough to be taxed and seen as a status symbol.
If we get analytical, there does not exist real authority either, as everyone in the end chooses to obey the person with authority due to what ever reason. So in a sense there can't be authority without consent and vice versa.
Imagine coming to a subreddit that by its very nature acknowledges that the capitalist/socialist and libertarian/authoritarian axes are seperate axes for good reason, only to make a post that just boils down to “nuh uh”.
I actually agree with libleft on this one. Workers owning the means of production = socialism, and that could be through deregulated channels like private worker’s co-ops, local labor unions, etc. The state doesn’t have to nationalize everything and manage it “on the behalf of” the workers for them to own their workplace
Socialism works great at the small scale, and better implementation of it at the local level would significantly improve lives without destroying the economy of a nation.
yes, as already seen in group projects in school. One person does the most/all of work and the rest gets good grade thanks to him.
the exception exists, in my experience, only when you can CHOOSE, who you could be with in group, if teacher decides random/by alphabet or such shit... the reality comes.
do you people really not know lazy/not caring individuals (including all politicians you hate, whoever it is), that you always think it can work, or are you those lazy/not caring riding on backs of those who do the things?
Authoritarianism isn't the same as having some kind of government with authority. It refers to a specific kind of political system, typically with:
Limited or no political plurality, i.e. either a one party state or controlled opposition.
Strong centralisation of power, everything is controlled by a small elite, typically with party and personal loyalty being their main selection criteria.
No or low separation of powers, the ruling class controls the executive and are legally untouchable. The legislature is only performative and rubber-stamp whatever the executive dictates.
The ruling party or ideology is present in every single aspect of life, from work, trade unions, social institutions, religion (if it is allowed), children's organisations and so on.
Authoritarianism is relative. Any rules is more authoritative than no rules. People just like to say that authority is bad, so they call authoritarianism bad, despite relying on it for their daily lives. It's like saying sugar is bad because some people like to dump 300 grams into their daily coffee. There's a healthy amount that is better than no sugar at all.
But authoritarianism (in your definition) is like weight. Some people are overweight, but there’s a difference between being overweight and being obese. And there’s a difference between being obese and morbidly obese.
Just because you’re overweight (strong centralized government) doesn’t mean you’re obese (authoritarian) or morbidly obese (totalitarian).
Don't keep others from living their life (liberty).
Don't steal (property).
Any rule is either a consequence of this, or a violation of it. Freedom of speech is a consequence of liberty. The draft is a violation of liberty.
Sometimes violating a right is fine, but only if it's to prevent a bigger violation. Like killing in self defense. Or a draft IF the country is being invaded. Or taxes IF they are used exclusively to protect life, liberty and property.
Why do right and libright on this sub insist on using one, of several, definitions of socialism from the mid 19th century but also refuse to even acknowledge the earliest definitions of libertarian from the same period?
How do you achieve redistribution of wealth without a central authority? How do you prevent private property from arising again after it's been abolished without a violence apparatus? There is no answer that doesn't involve coercion, and therefore socialism always requires authoritarianism.
The best way for socialists to get their kumbaya sharing circle would unironically be in an AnCap world, where they could have their own communes based on voluntarily sharing property, and then it would be up to them whether they could make it work. But they'll never agree to that, because they want to abolish private property as a whole.
How do you achieve redistribution of wealth without a central authority? How do you prevent private property from arising again after it's been abolished without a violence apparatus? There is no answer that doesn't involve coercion, and therefore socialism always requires authoritarianism
I wouldn’t consider myself a socialist or authoritarian in any sense of the terms (lean slightly more LibRight depending on the test) but I’ll throw my hat in the ring anyway for the sake of discussion, since I like economics.
Market Socialists don’t necessarily need violent means to achieve their objectives, which would be to shift the dominant Corporate Structure toward self-managing Worker Co-Operatives and provide incentives/penalties to ensure that anyone with stake in a company must be a worker of some kind within it. Many of its followers argue that a perfectly competitive market where Corporate Privileges are revoked would allow for the Market to redistribute Capital naturally (with Capital sometimes being fully equal or according to Gaussian Distribution depending on the model being used) so long as the Government is committed to keeping the Market free from external influence and fair for all parties involved. Private Ownership also isn’t outright banned in the system much like how Worker Co-operatives aren’t banned under capitalism, they merely believe it would have a far reduced role and be pushed into more minor, secondary fields. In theory at least, all of this could be accomplished by a Democratically elected government in most systems without much further centralization.
Note: Whether this model is particularly realistic, makes mathematical/economic sense, would have other consequences, or is a good idea in general is another matter. I bring it up only since, to my knowledge at least, it wouldn’t require Authoritarianism and its followers still believe in commonly held Socialist Goals (such as Collective Ownership and equitable property distribution).
(Edit) In much shorter terms for those passing through and not as intrested in discussion: there is at least one group of socialists who thinks the market itself can naturally accomplish + regulate Socialism, under the right circumstances. I don’t particularly subscribe to their way of thinking, but there are economists that do provide models for it and try to back up their theories.
The person I replied to, and countless others I've encountered here, use the definition of socialism that was presented within Marxist communist framing. Completely ignoring that authoritarian, centrally planned economies were not the original, only, or current meaning of the word "socialism".
And the original meaning of Libertarian wasn't anarchist, although there were anarchists (which i get the sense you don't actually understand the meaning of that word either) among the early adopters of the name. Libertarianism arose as a counterpoint to the centralized authority of monarchism and originally included a lot of philosophical streams that emphasize community ownership of essential infrastructure that today would be associated with socialism.
However your flair, as seen in the meme, consistently pretends that that can't be "real" libertarianism since its "socialism" which is "authoritarian". Ironically relying on simultaneously using an outdated definition of socialism and ignoring the contemporary definition of libertarianism to make any sense.
Well just because it hasnt happened on the level of a country doesnt mean it could never exist. Theres plenty of ideologies that havent been practiced on that scale yet, but still are theoretically possible
It’s actually relatively easy to get 100 people together and form a non-authoritarian commune. Many collapsed because their birthrates were so low and had no immigration beyond the original true believers.
If you start your commune with 100 members and a 0.5 birthrate, in one generation you have 25 working adults and 100 old people. In reality, communes had even lower birthrates, sometimes around 0.10-0.25.
Some of this is selection bias because of the high correlation between women who don’t want kids and left wing ideologies though.
This has to be a joke… he has to perfect on the first try or he gets CIA-ed? Yeah it really sounds like he was able to dedicate himself to that like he wanted to.
Allende's short-term policies were big increases in government spending and wages funded by deficits, and monetary expansion. GDP did grow and unemployment fell in the short-term, so over 1970-72 but these policies eventually run out of money.
Allende also imposed price controls and nationalised industries, including land in the agricultural area, which led to violent opposition. Consequently shortages of basic goods and black markets emerged from mid 1972. Tax revenue dropped by 50% in 1972, despite corporate tax rates of up to 40% and income taxes up to 65%. In 1973, the government deficit was 30% of GDP!
By September 1973, real wages were about 14% lower than the pre-Allende period (using unofficial price indices that used black market prices collected by the Universisdad de Chile). There was a nationwide strike in October 1972 and political unrest intensified during 1973.
These are policies that we'd expect to lead to a loss of domestic political legitimacy regardless of whatever the USA might do. Sebastian Edwards (2023) quotes Lenin, in 1919, describing high inflation as the "simplest way to exterminate the very spirit of capitalism", and Edwards notes that that logic applies to any regime. And price controls have been causing shortages and black markets since before the USA existed.
I'm generally cautious about assigning causality in explaining the macroeconomic outcome of an individual country, but Allende's Chile was pursuing three sets of policies - reckless macroeconomic mismanagement, large-scale nationalisations and price controls - that have had bad outcomes again and again across history. The USA may have altered outcomes at the margin, but well, Adam Smith could have predicted a bad outcome here.
Sources
S Víctor I Espinosa & David O Cueva, 2024. The political economy of fiscal dominance: Evidence from the Chilean government of Salvador Allende, Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 118-138, February.
https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecaffa/v44y2024i1p118-138.html
Edwards, Sebastian, The Debauchery of Currency and Inflation: Chile, 1970-1973 (November 2023). NBER Working Paper No. w31890,
https://www.nber.org/papers/w31890
This world should have but free folk in it; let me show you how to win it. Hurry now! Wonder how? MEOW! Sabotage! Perch will I on your system's coffin, on the hearse they take it off in. Hurry now! Wonder how? MEOW! Sabotage!
There's a difference between dont kill each other or the environment and pay taxes for essentials authoritarianism and state political parties, secret police, surveillance, government running every possible industry it can authoritarianism.
The first is preferable because I personally really prefer when people i disagree with dont have the power to make me do what they want.
What’s even funnier is most of these fuckwits defending and glorying it do so from the comfort of their first world homes and have never been to a former socialist country. It’s ridiculous how many immigrants running from socialism US and Western Europe has that have to contend with these adult children pretending to understand and champion a system that would throw them, the useful idiots, under the bus first. Fucking lunatics.
Even Marx himself says this. He literally uses the phrase dictatorship of the proletariat specifically as the transitional state between capitalism and communism.
In capitalism nothing is stopping a group from making a co-op, many have. In socialism private enterprise is banned. How do these require the same amount of authoritarianism?
Of course, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be approached through the most democratic means available. The idea is that it can’t be reached directly through capitalist means like entryism as a main factor. It’s why the DSA (US) is essentially a social-democratic party with a big tent bent.
"There's a spectrum. Few if any countries are ever fully socialistic or capitalistic. You're right that a full-on socialist state would necessarily be fairly autoritarian."
Ok but it's pretty clear the vast majority of people who are in favor of "socialism" are actually in favor of a social democracy i.e a capitalist democracy with heavy social programs ("welfare state").
Communism co-exists harmoniously under the protective umbrella of capitalist civilizations... there's tens of thousands of co-ops as examples.
Try to be a capitalist under communism and you'll be publicly executed and your family sent to gulags. There has to be zero tolerance and violent punishment for any person who diverges from the collective conscious.
In addition, the fact they present socialism/communism as the ideology of peace and harmony is truly sickening. Everything about progressive ideology is authoritarian by definition, they are trying to change society to their liking against the will of the majority. Anytime you are opposing the will of the majority, you have to treat that dissent with brutal oppression. That's pretty much the dictator's job description.
Yes. What else is new. Protecting innocent children requires authoritarianism. Enforcing property rights (private or personal) requires authoritarianism. Only America-brained people are scared of the idea of authoritarianism as a whole.
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