this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
710 points (83.9% liked)

Comics

5826 readers
29 users here now

This is a community for everything comics related! A place for all comics fans.

Rules:

1- Do not violate lemmy.ml site-wide rules

2- Be civil.

3- If you are going to post NSFW content that doesn't violate the lemmy.ml site-wide rules, please mark it as NSFW and add a content warning (CW). This includes content that shows the killing of people and or animals, gore, content that talks about suicide or shows suicide, content that talks about sexual assault, etc. Please use your best judgement. We want to keep this space safe for all our comic lovers.

4- No Zionism or Hasbara apologia of any kind. We stand with Palestine 🇵🇸 . Zionists will be banned on sight.

5- The moderation team reserves the right to remove any post or comments that it deems a necessary for the well-being and safety of the members of this community, and same goes with temporarily or permanently banning any user.

Guidelines:

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] samus12345 6 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Large-scale, actual communism with no authoritarianism? Not that I'm aware of. It's hard to implement true communism effectively on a large scale because most people have to care enough about others to willingly contribute for it to work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What do you count as "Authoritatianism?"

Why do you think Communism requires people to care about others to function, and why would they not work otherwise?

I think you have some serious misunderstandings about what Communism entails.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Authoritarianism is the opposite of libertarianism, roughly speaking. It’s a sliding scale, but those would be the two opposites in play.

For example, a more authoritarian approach to road safety would be: “Manufacturers are not allowed to make cars that go over 50 mph”

A more libertarian approach to road safety would be: “We’re publishing the average fatality rate of this road. You can choose to engage with it as you deem appropriate”

Our actual approach with licenses and speed limits and some regulations on car safety and soft but escalating consequences for breaking the road rules is somewhere in between.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

So it's vibes-based and not actually tied to anything material.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Also they have to not want to trade. If someone starts trading, then the communism is over.

Turns out when people are free to make economic arrangements as they please, capitalism happens.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Also they have to not want to trade. If someone starts trading, then the communism is over.

Trading is not capitalism.
Markets are not capitalism.
Money is not capitalism.
Those things have existed for millenia before capitalism came to exist, around 600 years ago, eventually, over the span of several hundred years, replacing previous socio-politico-economic systems, feudalism in particular.

The first sentence from Wikipedia: Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.

The first sentence from Wikipedia: Socialism

Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.

Notice that both definitionally concern who owns the means of production.

Communism:

Communism is a mode of production characterized by common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes. The term is also used to refer to the movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of this mode of production.

Communism is a movement toward socialism, with the ultimate goal of the erasing social class hierarchies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The last line has communism and socialism switched

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Edit to add: I think I see what you meant now. Yes, you could also say “socialism is a movement toward communism,” in the sense that socialism is a step in the path to communism.


I don’t think so. Communism can’t be reached in one fell swoop. The reason why communist states didn’t and don’t have communism in their names is because—by their own admission—they aren’t yet communist, they’re socialist.

First comes a transformation from a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie to a dictatorship of the proletariat, where the working class has control of the state and the means of production. In other words, socialism. The end-goal of communism is to be rid of classes altogether, but it's not possible jump straight to it. You can’t go to bed one day under capitalism and magically wake up the next under communism.

Marxists define the state as a system by which the ruling class maintains its dominance other classes. So when we talk about the end-goal of a “classless, stateless society,” we mean that classlessness definitionally also means statelessness.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Right, you were using communism as a movement, not the higher stage, in which case it makes more sense.