this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
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I mean a variety of AES states, which have weathered sanctions, provided dramatic increases in measurable quality of life metrics like life expectancy, employment rates, literacy rates, home ownership, and more. China is just one of those. I don't know what you mean by "running a country like an army." Moreover, it's fairly well documented that the economic success of China lies in its focus on increasing the productive forces, and relying on central planning and limited competition for efficiency within SOEs, allowing the Private Sector to develop lighter and less critical industries.
As for the pivot to moralistic arguments, that really isn't the point. "Moralism" isn't what drives material reality, just our interpretation of it. The clear fact is that in order to profit, Capitalists must pay workers less than the value they create. This is unnecessary and inefficient, moreso as markets monopolize and competition wanes in favor of large cartels and syndicates.
Centralization of markets is a necessary consequence of development. The more industry advances, the further the barrier to entry into a given sector raises, and the lower the rate of profit falls. You can't stop this process, you can't remain in a static state of motion without moving. If centralization is a fact, then it is better to democratize and publicly own and plan, rather than leaving it to the wealthy few.
Your point on "Marxist nations doing asshole things to each other" is a non-sequitor. I never claimed that in the first place, moreover it's important to analyze why countries behave in "asshole ways" to begin with. The US Empire murdered 1 million Iraqis for profit, and tried to brutally crush Korea and Vietnam for refusing to go along with US-dominated world markets. Same with Cuba. The difference with Socialism is that the profit motive is superceded by human control and planning, and the economy can be directed for the good of the people. This doesn't prevent all conflict, but fundamentally shrinks the causes for conflict.
You aren't trying to make the current system less hellish, really, you're arguing non-sequitors and potentially deliberate misinterpretations of the claims of Marxists to argue against a better world.
You keep saying things are non sequitors because you are essentially this meme
While I don’t like Turning Point USA, I think that’s the crux of the issue in all these contentious points. Can a group of a well-meaning individuals tell the PRC how to do anything?
This child brain strawman constructed from thin air is as dumb as it was created to be therefore I'm going to continue plugging my ears while you try to explain foundational concepts to me
It’s been addressed. The altruism refers to the altruism of those with enough resources to become successful in capitalist states.
What are you even talking about. You're referencing something in a conversation that hasn't happened here.
Capitalism "works" up to a point, in a sense. The issues with Capitalism don't arise from "selfishness." Rather, Capitalism necessarily monopolizes and centralizes over time, and competition lowers the rate of profit through automation and raises the barrier to entry. Earlier on, markets can be a useful tool for rapid development, especially when accompanied by a central government carefully pruning and directing them to avoid exploitation where possible, but as markets coalesce into syndicates and large monopolies the benefits of competition disappear gradually. At this point, it makes clear sense to publicly own and plan.
Further, Marxists don't believe people will "work for the common good." At almost all phases of Socialism and Communism, people will almost certainly be paid for their labor, be it through traditional currencies in the earlier stages of Socialism to Labour Vouchers, distributed centrally and destroyed upon first use, in the earlier stages of Communism. This is how all Socialist societies have functioned.
When you have to rely on strawmen and, again, non-sequitors in order to feign a point, all you do is feed Marxists with cheap rhetorical wins. I genuinely question your motives here, if you don't present points in good-faith you only make Marxism look better. This is only compounded by loud declarations of "resistance" towards a mysterious "downvote brigade," it's like you enjoy going against the grain for the sake of it.
As for the PRC, yes. There are 8 political parties other than the CPC that work together to form the governing body of the PRC, and there are democratic practices at play from the local to the national level.
I feel the issues with capitalism don't necessarily arise from the centralization per se (if that were the case, then centralizing the power in the State would be bad too), but from the consequences of that centralization when the decisions of that private entity are entirely "free". That's why freedom ends where someone else's begins.
Please do correct me if I'm wrong (and I say this with complete honesty), but my interpretation is that communism is whenever there's common (public/communal) ownership of the means of production, while capitalism is whenever there's private ownership of the means of production.
Under this interpretation (which could be wrong, again, correct me), ALL forms of common ownership are forms of communism (regardless of how fair/unfair are their laws), and ALL forms of private ownership are forms of capitalism (regardless of how fair/unfair are their laws).
I believe that there's a point where the factories could be so heavily regulated by laws and rules set up by the State that whether they are privately owned or not would be little more than a piece of paper that is used to determine who's the one who will be executed/imprisoned if the resources are found to not have been distributed fairly.
Of course, no state in the world has reached that point of utopic social democratic capitalistic harmony.. but also no state in the world has reached the utopic communist ideal either, right?
It's more accurate to say that the systemic issues of Capitalism sharpen as it centralizes. Exploitation becomes more naked, competition dies out, barriers to entry become impossible hurdles, and the vast wealth of society is concentrated in the hands of the few. Centralization itself isn't bad, rather, it's the natural consequence of the advance of industry. Supply lines, raw material sourcing, trade routes, industrialization, all become closer linked and more sprawling to raise efficiency, and as a consequence markets cease to be competing powers but few large trusts. Socialism flips this on its head by democratizing and collectivizing, keeping the benefits of centralization and spreading them out.
As for Communism vs Capitalism, sort of. Capitalism is categorized by a Mode of Production where Private Ownership and Markets are primary, Socialism is categorized by Public Ownership and planning being primary, and Communism specifically is a Mode of Production where all property has been collectivized globally, and Class therefore erased, with the State alongside it, leaving a world republic. It isn't a "one drop" rule or about which is more common, but which is primary. Fairness is indeed not the determining characteristic.
The thing about your hypothesis, the inflexion point on ownership, it does matter. If it's privately owned, the profits go to the owner, if it's publicly owned then the "profits" go to the whole of society, in the form of safety nets, industrialization, etc. This fundamentally cannot exist alongside Capitalism as dominant because under Capitalism, the Capitalists have control and power, and in Socialism the Working Class does. There would be no benefit for the Capitalists to allow ownership in name only, and the State in Capitalism cannot move in that direction as it is under the control of Capitalists.
Does that make sense?
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
Is this really what "ownership" means? is it impossible to own something but not get all the profits from it? Even if a law enforces the redistribution of profits?
Also, is it possible that even when they are publicly owned, the "profits" benefit more a particular part of the society than other? how do you guarantee that the one who works the most gets the most? or do you simply don't mind about that anymore?
That's essentially what I was saying. In general, centralizing power will always sharpen any unfairness within that power.. that's why the issue is not in the centralization, but in the unfairness. Focusing in the centralization does not address the point.
Most companies pay taxes, yes. The purpose of ownership is the profit, if you run an entity publicly like, say, USPS, profit no longer becomes the purpose. The inverse is true, administrators would likely get more money in Socialism, or labor vouchers in early Communism, than regular workers. Socialism isn't about equal pay, nor is Communism. As for guaranteeing, that's not really important. You can pay more for more skilled jobs, or pay the same for fewer hours for dangerous jobs. Look at how Socialist societies exist currently.
If you want to learn more, I have a Marxism-Leninism reading list linked on my profile. The first section is all you really need to get an understanding of terms and basics.
Ok, so if it's only a purpose and not part of the definition, then it is possible to have ownership without profit.
I'd argue, the only reason why the purpose of ownership is profit is because it is profitable to have ownership, but having ownership does not necessarily imply you get all the profit.
From this it follows that if having ownership were to be no longer profitable (or say.. still profitable but less than being a worker), then it would be possible to have private ownership (capitalism) where profit is not the purpose of having ownership.
But who guarantees that you "pay more for more skilled jobs" or "pay the same for fewer hours for dangerous jobs"? And specifically, in communism, not in socialism. Let's not argue on whether socialist societies running in social democratic capitalistic countries can be considered to be from one side or the other. "Common ownership" is not the same as "collective ownership", and it can come with its very own set of unfair practices.
Also, my question was specifically about the redistribution of the profit. How do you guarantee that the profit goes to the one who works the hardest and not to the one who happens to be in a circumstance that places them in a position where they can reap the most rewards?
Private Ownership itself is not Capitalism. Capitalism and Socialism are labels for economies, not individual aspects of an economy. The USPS is not a "Socialist" section of the US economy while Amazon a "Capitalist" section, rather, the entire economy is designated as Capitalist with Amazon as part of the Private Sector and the USPS as part of the Public Sector. Socialist societies like the USSR had private ownership, see the NEP, or the modern Socialist Market Economy of the PRC. This is similar to what you describe as private ownership being directed by government for the purpose of achieving society's ends, but not the same.
Social Democracies like the Nordic Countries are not Socialist. The public sectors service and support the private sector, not the other way around, and they fund their safety nets through Imperialism. No country has achieved Communism yet, when we talk about Socialism we talk about Cuba, the PRC, Vietnam, Laos, the former USSR, etc. In Communism, there is no private ownership to begin with, no markets either, all of the economy is publicly owned and planned.
This is what I asked you before. What is capitalism? you agreed with the definition I gave. If you are gonna change the term then we are no longer talking about the same thing.
Like I said, I don't want to talk about socialism because I feel it's an in-between solution that would just make the topic more complex than it already is. Socialism is not Communism either, so please do not use Socialist examples.
I know, that's why the full term I used was "social democratic capitalistic countries", I consider them capitalist States.
I explained it before, but I'll explain it again. Capitalism is, at its simplest, a Mode of Production where private ownership and markets are primary. I'll expand on what "primary" means this time, because I think this is what slipped by. When I say "primary," I mean the driving force and trajectory of the economy, as well as which class controls the state. What does the state serve, the Capitalists or the Workers?
Socialism isn't an "in-between solution," towards Communism. It's the process of building Communism. Humanity has never seen Communism, so I am not sure why you are trying to discuss it. What are you trying to talk about, the hypothetical future society of Communism?
I see. Sorry I missed that.
But then I think that interpretation implies, in its very definition, oligarchy.
What do you call a society where private ownership is the main form of ownership and yet has a State designed to serve the Workers?
And to build communism you don't need an in-between solution?
Is it really only "a process"? or is it also a socioeconomic system?
Yes. Humanity has never seen a fair society, period. Neither one with private ownership, nor one with common ownership. The aliens were not talking about Socialism, they were talking about a hypothetical future society where ownership wasn't a thing at all (not even collective ownership in the socialist sense), nor contracts.
And I dared to try to talk as well about a hypothetical future society of (what I initially considered to be, under my previous definition) Capitalism too.
What do you mean by "main" form of ownership? The primary? Or the one most common? If the former, that doesn't really exist, a state controlled by the workers where the Capitalists have power over the economy would collapse very quickly, perhaps like the Paris Commune in the mid 1800s. If the latter, it would be Socialism, like in the NEP in the USSR, or a more privatized version of the PRC's economy (which is majority public).
I understand that the aliens are talking about a semi-Communist organization. I am not sure how you expect your form of society to come into existence except as a transitional society, like the NEP in the USSR.
I meant the most common. What do you call it?
Also, note that I did not ask you if it exists or not, Communism does not exist either but that does not invalidate the idea, right?
I agree. A transitional "in-between" solution. That's exactly what I meant, a system that still has not fully transitioned and still depends on some core elements from capitalist systems.
So then you mean Socialism a la the NEP. That would not be Capitalism, moreover it would necessarily trend towards Communism. In an instance where markets and private ownership were primary but workers gained control of the state, it would fall like the Paris Commune did.
I see.. well, that seems like a pretty nice idea to me, if it's the way I'm envisioning it.
Also, as a defender of the idea of division of powers, I honestly prefer when executive powers at all levels are distinct from planning/legislative. So if it does really "necessarily trend towards Communism" I'd hope whatever replaces the private owners does the same job of assuming responsibility if/when unfairness happens as it did before the fall. I'd hate if the same level of scrutiny and legal/social pressure wasn't placed against the ones replacing them.
You can dig into how the NEP functioned and how the current PRC functions (and is trending towards) to see such a system in action, or look at Vietnam and Laos.
Sorry, but I disagree China "has a State designed to serve the Workers" (my requirement). I'd say they are in an "in-between" state towards my ideal "private sector, workers state" society, but not really there...
For example, an important tool (probably necessary requirement) to ensure the Workers are being prioritized is transparency. At the moment, I think the CCP is more concerned about their own reputation than anything else. They are perfectly happy with letting big corpo expoit when it benefits the CCP... to the point that they would sooner acquire the company and become themselves the ones doing the explotaition than actually fixing the issues via policy.
The have a wimpy soft globe when it comes to defending the workers but a long tongue when it comes to licking boots of the powerful. They are definitely NOT what I was talking about.
I haven't cecked on Laos and Vietnam, but if you are mentioning China among them (and considering they are pretty close and likely friends of the CCP) I don't have high expectations.
About NEP.. I'm searching but I'm finding it hard to find any measures that were taken to control private owners and force them to redistribute profits. I also see that the Workers were unhappy and called it "New Exploitation of the Proletariat".. so again, it looks like an attempt at addressing the wrong problems. It still does not meet my requirement.
Where have you read about China where you get those impressions? Part of why Xi Jinping is so popular is because he ran an anti-corruption campaign. Moreover, I don't see what you mean by a "private sector, worker state" as an ideal. That doesn't really exist anywhere, the closest would be the NEP or the PRC's economy. There's no functional reason to have a worker owned and controlled state and maintain private ownership except as a method of development in the early stages of Socialism, which is why it existed in the NEP and exists in the PRC, Vietnam, and Laos.
The reason you aren't seeing much on forcing redistribution of profits of the NEP is because its purpose was to develop the Productive Forces to the point where they could be collectivized. The purpose wasn't to be private, the purpose was to use markets as a temporary tool for rapid industrialization before collectivizing.
I think you need to do more studying on why AES states function the way they do, rather than try to theorycraft an ideal society.
I was about to say, this person seems to be very idealist, combined with some wrong ideas (e.g. about private ownership for some reason being better?), it leads to some very wonky stuff
Yea, that's what I'm getting too. This is one of the cases where someone comes in with pre-existing notions about what should be, and allows that to drive the conversation more than learning why Marxists believe what we believe. You hit the nail on the head with private ownership, genuinely don't see why that would make any sense unless you're trying to remain linked to the global economy or develop underdeveloped sectors of the economy rapidly, in all other cases and sometimes even in these cases Public Ownership is just better.
I think the private ownership is coming from this:
The liberal idea of... meritocracy, ah, not that's maybe part of it, but... I know what I want to say, but I forget what it is called, hopefully you can guess it.
I think meritocracy covers it, it's a very "liberal" idea that doesn't really make any material sense. Like, private owners don't assume responsibility, that's part of the problem. Kinda like noblesse oblige.
No, by "assume responsibility" I mean: be the one who's executed / imprisoned / their head cut off
It's the State who should be enforcing that. I'm not saying private owners magically are responsible people.. what I sad is that they will be the ones found responsible by the State.
I literally mean punishing the one who is the owner, whenever unfairness is found.
Who would be punished in Communism? and how?
But thanks for the attempt at trying to understand me, even if not very successfully :P (also thanks @[email protected] )
In Communism, there will be administrators and planners, and the economy will be run more democratically. In the instance that someone is committing a crime, they would be rehabilitated, likely not punished. In Capitalism, business owners aren't punished, really.
Yes, but that would be the legislative / planning arm.. there should be, I expect, an executive arm carrying out the redistribution. Essentially, they would act as the owners of the profit generation-distribution of the particular service, in the same way the private owners do.
So my hope is that they are treated with the same level of scrutiny / social pressure. Essentially, there would not be a lot of difference between private ownership and a form of common ownership when both have a good control. Because at the end of the day, the control is what matters, not whether they have a paper that says "owner" or a paper that says "distributor".
Number 1, the reason Communists don't put too much stock into how Communism will function is because we believe it has to be built towards. We can only speculate. That being said...
In Communism, there's no such thing as profit. Commodity production for exchange-value doesn't exist. There is only production for Use-Value. There's no need for a "profit redistribution" arm of anything, the administration will likely have different ministries like Ministry of Education, etc but there's no need for these individual redistributors. There will be managers, planners, "accountants," and more.
I think you'd do well to investigate how AES, countries trying to build towards Communism, function in reality.
I meant profit of Use-Value.
I already asked you this question before, but you did not answer it, and I remember you were the one to use the word "profit" (in quotes) when talking about Communism for this same reason (I did notice).
How do you ensure the ones who work the hardest get the most Use-Value of the community "profit"?
Or do we no longer care about unfair redistribution of goods / services / food / water / housing / etc ?
Is it only under "private ownership" where we need to make sure we give more value to the ones who work the hardest? is it not unfair if someone who works the least gets more than someone who works the most? what about someone who happens to be friend with the one distributing housing?
... And with this I go to bed, it's late here... thanks for the discussion!
It depends on the phase in Communism. In lower phases, Labor Vouchers (centrally administered and destroyed on first use) would likely be used to for goods and services that aren't essential, essentials would be free. Rates of Labor Vouchers would be based on hours worked, with more for higher skilled or more intense labor, and the same vouchers payed for less time worked in more strenuous or dangerous conditions. In higher phases, it likely wouldn't matter, productivity would be high enough for the mantra "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs."
You can read more on economic planning, but again, please research AES to see how these countries are already attempting to work towards such a system.
My wife is chinese. My sister in law was working for Huawei (just this year she finally quit and came to the EU). I also had China chinese coworkers that were pretty unhappy about how chinese companies they were working for before treated them (eg. AliExpress).
Do you actually believe it when you see a politician saying they ran an anti-corruption campaign with the goal of actually benefiting the Workers and not themselves? Again, I repeat the statement: "the CCP is more concerned about their own reputation than anything else".
Do you think being popular is proof of actually being honest / good politician?
Trump won the popular vote.... a politician having a lot of fans that make a lot of noise does not mean anything. Specially when you are openly banning people who are critic of you...
If Xi Jinping is so good, why does he need to use dirty methods to silence criticism? why is he, instead of searching for transparency, pushing to hide feedback from the Workers?
Transparency is THE ONE THING that can effectively fight corruption. Taking out leaders of big corpos is just a way to wash your hands so that you can then continue playing with the mud under your opaque curtain, protected by "yes men".
I did not say that it exists. Communist states don't exist either, you already said that.
So it did not set rules to make sure the workers are not being treated unfairly? Then I would not consider that any closer than any normal social democracy to what I was proposing. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Social Democracies were closer to it.
Having the purpose of collectivizing does not tell me anything about what rules are being set to ensure we “pay more for more skilled jobs” or “pay the same for fewer hours for dangerous jobs”. It looks like an "in-between" experiment towards something else entirely rather than actually trying to attack the root of the problem.
Why can't you explain it? (this makes me feel a bit like this comment wasn't that far off)
Is theorycrafting only fun when it's about exploring solutions that reject private ownership?
Oh, didn't get the notification for this.
First of all, you have a very small sample size, but more correctly it's 100% correct to say that China has issues and problems. The idea that to call a system "Socialist" or to say that a party in power is genuinely working towards xyz aims means that the system doesn't have problems it needs to work on is flawed. You gave the example of Huawei and AliExpress, both companies run for profit. These companies are going to have similar issues to companies in a Capitalist economy, though the safety nets in China are nicer than in many other countries and there is more accountability from the Workers than most Capitalist countries.
Secondly, as for Xi. No, I don't blindly believe whatever a politician says, however your rant ended up just saying that being popular isn't necessarily indicative of someone representing the interests of the people. I'd counter that by saying Trump also lost the popular vote twice, while Xi has maintained much higher popularity levels consistently. This doesn't mean he's infallible, but we can look at massive campaigns like the Poverty Eradication Campaign or the resurgance of cooperative firms in China, or the campaigns to lower price of medicine through renegotiation, and more to see why he may enioy the support he does.
As for your system not existing in reality, I am specifically questioning why you want that. There is no benefit to Private Ownership at very high levels of development, there is no reason to maintain them. Communism doesn't exist yet because it is a predicted form of society based on analyzing trends in Mode of Production, specifically in Capitalism. What you are saying as "ideal" only seems possible as a step on the way there.
As for the NEP, there's a difference between funneling all of profits in an economy with a large private sector towards social safety nets like you seem to be wanting (at which point public ownership entirely is more efficient) and the NEP. The Soviets, for example, had free healthcare (the first of its kind in the modern world) as early as 1919. They used markets and private ownership purely to build up industry before collectivizing, yet still protected their workers and still collectivized.
I have no genuine idea what you mean by "what rules did they set" to ensure this. They literally codified in law higher pay for more skilled or intense labor, and codified in law lower working hours for more dangerous labor at the same pay. This was a part of the USSR's legal system, I genuinely don't know what else you want to "ensure" that.
I have been explaining, and I haven't thrown link after link at you or told you "you don't understand Communism" like that other commenter implied. I pointed you to studying AES because if you genuinely want to see how some of your ideas would pan out in society, they are your closest bet, and I think you'd rather do your own research rather than take it all from one person's words.
As for theorycrafting, it isn't about "fun." What you're doing is Utopianism, trying to imagine a better society to create outright, rather than analyzing where society is heading and how we can best steer that. I told you already, Communists don't really bother much with this, focusing instead on where we are heading based on what we have observed in reality.
Those issues are related to corruption, as mentioned. Corruption exists in all forms of economic systems. The problem with a system which relies on central planning is that corruption is harder to root out or beat via democratic means.
I am saying that Marxists believe that people don’t want to own properties or the means of production in favor of central planning. Why shouldn’t they? Because they’re so altruistic and want to favor those who will never be able to achieve such means?
The fact is that some people will have better resources to become capitalists, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to do away with capitalism. What makes sense then is to make it easier for those who cannot or do not want to become capitalists to have a life free from being abused or harmed.
There are a number of errors with your first paragraph, so I'll split it up.
First, centralization is not caused by "corruption." Throughout the M-C-M' circuit, where money is used to produce and sell commodities for higher quantities of money, drives expansion. Competition accelerates this. Even without any corruption whatsoever, this process will continue, it's a consequence of markets in general. Those that outcompete absorb or kill off those who undercompete until few large syndicates remain.
Second, claiming that because corruption exists in all Modes of Production doesn't mean it exists to equal degrees and scales in all Modes of Production. This is, again, more of a point of nihilism, by refusing to analyze the causes and mechanisms of corruption and just applying it in blanket terms, your analysis is not very useful for addressing it.
Third, you never justify why a system based on public ownership and planning is harder to root out corruption, you just leave it as a hanging thesis. What democratic means are more effective when you have a handful of unaccountable individuals in charge of firms, instead of Socialist organization along democratic lines?
As for your second point, I legitimately have no idea what you're trying to get at. Shifting to public ownership and planning would dramatically increase the level of influence the average individual has over the economy and how it runs, as opposed to Capitalism where that privledge is in the hands of the wealthy Capitalists. Most people would give up their ability to form a business if it meant greater quality of life, because the vast majority can't start businesses, a rule that becomes increasingly true as barriers to entry increase due to monopolization and increased costs of industrial equipment as it further specializes.
Your last paragraph isn't really a point against Marxism, or much of a point at all. Safety nets are band-aids given as concessions from the Capitalists, and erode when first available. Capitalist countries are controlled by the wealthy few, there isn't a genuine democracy in place. For that to occur, ownership needs to be more equal, which requires Working Class supremacy.
The errors you’re seeing are due to your biased assessment of the systems and processes, there are a lot of assumptions you’re baking into your own understanding and then blaming me for them. Like this,
Monopolies are not an inherent consequence of free market economics, in fact that’s why we have anti-monopoly actions in many industries. That’s why regulatory concerns exist in the first place.
That’s fine, but historically what we’ve observed is that centrally planned economies tend to lean autocratic. Or do you really believe that select groups could petition Stalins committees for anything that deviated from his vision of what society should be. Even with Trump trying to do away with birthright citizenship it can’t be undone constitutionally.
Simply because of what I’ve observed in existing places which follow Marxist ideology. The average Chinese citizen does not have any power over what the state does. The same goes for the average Vietnamese citizen. Meanwhile even small business owners can provide input to their states in western democracies and effect regulations.
This is patently untrue based on anything that’s factually happened over the course of recent history. This tells me your perspective is either misguided or disingenuous.
People in western democracies can effectively vote for different types of representatives, and the pov of those representatives have wide ranging consequences. In fact that’s exactly why western democracies are experiencing destabilization via nation state propaganda which makes their citizens hate their very countries and the systems they’re based on. This is very different from any scenario that has existed in any socialist or Marxist state, including USSR or China or Vietnam.
The fact that people want to extol the virtues of Marxist ideas based on nothing but magical and wishful thinking is sad.
Regulations and anti-trust laws are a band-aid. Competition reduces the rate of profit, which is only combatted through expansion, whether it be joining firms together or international expansion a la Imperialism. To not do so would lower the rate of profit to zero and collapse the economy.
Centrally planned economies have been autocratic towards Capitalists, sure, but have had their own democratic structures. See Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan for more on how they functioned and if they functioned well (they did, though not without imperfections).
The average Chinese and Vietnamese citizens can absolutely impact government, especially local gocernment. Democracy for business owners isn't genuine democracy, that's a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
As for citizens having more control in publicly owned and planned economies, it is true. See the formerly linked Soviet Democracy, as well as Is the Red Flag Flying? Political Economy of the Soviet Union as well as This Soviet World as well as Blackshirts and Reds as well as Workplace Democracy In Action in the CPC. Simply stating "no" isn't a point, I can tell you what AES states are and were like but if you're going to respond with "no," all I can do is show you sources proving otherwise.
As for the destabilization in western countries, its because the representatives have a narrow vision of what you can vote for and ultimately serve the Bourgeoisie over all else. There isn't some foreign conspiracy to take down the US from within the electoral system, that's chauvanism on display and is utterly divorced from reality.
Marxists are Marxists because of the real benefits of Socialism worldwide that are measurable and trackable, calling it "magical and wishful thinking" is just a thought-terminating cliché.