“Communism has poven track record of working”
More like a proven record of not working. How many communist countries are still around today? How many of those are places you would want to live? If they are communist they are also heavily authoritarian. At the end of the day communism “works” if you only believe what the state propaganda tells you. The reality is that forcing people into jobs and trying to eliminate competition ends up hurting diversity of thought. It is no surprise every communist revolution is a violent one. Add that to the fact that the farms completely fell apart and were not producing much output and you have a disaster that has to be covered up.
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
Yeah, you can use Cuba. The embargoes are stupid.
But Vietnam and Laos have recovered from the wars. Vietnam has one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Laos is more difficult due to its size, but it has free markets with Thailand and China, and the Laos government is even beginning to open up more expressive freedoms for people due to the presence of Thai trade.
also you’ll find communist nations also putting sanctions on the US. It’s not much of an argument though, since their sanctions are obviously weaker.
Removed by mod
But they are working. They’re poor, standards are low, as are rights and freedoms, but they do work. You can become a citizen and experience communism exactly as it was described.
What is the intervention of Laos and Vietnam at the moment? I couldn’t find anything. The closest I could find is a defence deal, and that’s about it.
Removed by mod
I never said they needed to be globally competitive. If possible, I think every nation should transition to being self-serving, renewable, and entirely self-sufficient with their resources.
Communist nations can exist unconnected to the rest of the world’s trade. Look at North Korea and Cuba as examples. Not particularly nice places to live. Both nations have very little international trade, but they still exist.
My primary point is that all of these nations are functioning communist states; although poor when compared to the rest of the world, they are still functioning. You can still get citizenship and live out your communist desires to the fullest extent of their laws. You will hate it, but you can live it.
See, that’s my problem with tankies. They’re all fabulously rich. I know this since I’m in their circles and have talked to many on a personal level–yet–None of these rich kiddies actually give a shit about advancing communsim. They can give all of their vast riches and higher education to these communist states, give them that mighty dollar, that western brain, but they don’t, they just refuse. Instead, they prefer to live out their days aimlessly fantasising about how nice it would be to see everything fall apart (who doesn’t?) instead of putting boots to the ground and getting shit done. Most of the time they even go against their own ideals, like supporting the proxy wars of arab oil barons or hypercapitalistic Russia. For their arguments over materialism, there sure is a lack of it.
I beg you to include some comprehension when replying–evidently lacking as you blissfully ignore my mentions of these nations’ modern trade and supply, pity.
For a second I thought you were a tankie
i believe there is an important distinction between communist and tankie
From a economics perspective there is none. A communist may not necessarily endorse genocide but there is very little evidence to show that communism works in practice. It pretty much is exclusive to authoritarianism. Again that is simply history.
that is a good point
It isn’t really my own. You can find paper from PhD level experts who have studied economic systems extensively
Though, real talk. I do think communism will become standard in the future, but not in our lifetimes, of course.
Frankly there is very little evidence to support that theory. The problem with communism is two fold. First, it removes the drive to improve processes. Second, it is highly vulnerable to people to game the system. People will always find a way to get more for themselves and because there is little incentives compared a regular market they will not work harder at there job.
The workplace is ruff and it is definitely is very unpleasant at times. You have to work to find a job and sometimes the job is just miserable. However, it forces the best performance out of everyone which is something communism fails to do.
Well, I believe in the future EVERYTHING will be automated. Economically, how would you compete against a machine that makes a machine that makes a machine that makes a machine (-infinitely-)?
I think humanity will move on from material desire and become hyperspiritualised as it’s the one thing the machine cannot do and cannot be given. Wall-E or the Matrix basically, pick your poison.
There are a lot of potential futures, such as:
- Star Trek - humanity can automate everything, so people follow their passions
- Matrix - machines take over
- Cyberpunk/Fifth Element - same problems as today, just modernized
While I would like the first, I think the last is the most likely.
You have to work to find a job and sometimes the job is just miserable. However, it forces the best performance out of everyone which is something communism fails to do.
However, it forces the best performance out of everyone
Have you ever in your life seen a single minimum wage worker?
No offense, but you’ve eaten capitalist propaganda pretty fucking hard. Your comment tldr could be “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”, and the irony is that you probably don’t even consider that sentences ironic.
Second, it is highly vulnerable to people to game the system.
That’s much more inherent in capitalism, because communism by default would require regulation whereas capitalism strives to get rid of it. Which is also why a lot of communism ended in authoritarian regime.
First, it removes the drive to improve processes.
The drive for novelty exists regardless of the economic system, it’s universal in humanity.
Ironic for a group that currently obsesses over anti-genocide to be pro-genocide;
"Even if every absurd fabrication that the anti-communist propagandists like to parrot about the millions supposedly killed by Stalin, Mao, etc. was true, those numbers would pale in comparison to the number of lives they saved, "
also
Creating gender equality
Until Stalin reversed it all lol (there are also no high-ranking women in the Chinese government – ever)
What we really need is a female let totalitarian dictatorship.
Source: The Onion
See, out of a somewhat displaced curiosity, I’d actually like to see that. Would it turn out the “same” as previous mainly patriarchic autocracies? Would it collapse? Any interesting policies?
Ask Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina was widely considered to be an autocrat.
I’m guessing it didn’t go too well?
To put it mildly. But what are few massacres and disappearances between friends.
And in democracies you also have examples like Thatcher. The problem with the patriarchy is the patriarchy in general, not the genitals of the person in charge.
be the change you want to see
deleted by creator
im not even going to touch their disdain towards imperialism while also praising modern-day china. i’d drown in the irony. Quick, someone, throw me a buoy!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15590383/
Yep, no domestic violence or sexist culture here, none whatsoever, China is a glorious wonderland of sexual and gender equality /s.
(there are also no high-ranking women in the Chinese government – ever)
Huh. I hadn’t noticed. Which says nothing good about China, obviously, but it also highlights how a sausage-fest government does not stand out to us.
Correlation ≠ Causation
Perhaps it just so happened that Mao took control around the same time medical sciences obtained a break through in some field.
If we did universal healthcare and killed ten percent of left-handed people, then statistically, that’s a net plus. Statistics are not soft and friendly things.
Relatively speaking that graph does show Asia having closed the gap between the global average. But it’s a wee bit hard to isolate ‘China’ from ‘Asia’.
When you add western nations, they’re far above both the global average and China.
Communist nations may have killed millions. But capitalist nations have killed more by orders of magnitude.
It’s almost like humans resort to violence when they think they can get away with it
How do you even quantify that?
“You died by capitalism” – How?
It’s impossible to quantify how many people were killed by an economic system because it’s never direct. You would have to arbitrarily decide how many layers of abstraction are too many for the death to be attributable to the economic system under which it occurred, and the more layers there are the more unclear it is. That’s why the “victims of communism” numbers and lists that get thrown around are all bullshit, it’s entirely subjective. If you want to be objective you have to be specific about the cause of death and whose actions directly resulted in it.
For example, imagine an alcoholic homeless man dies of exposure after being evicted from a building he was squatting in. Who’s responsible? There are lots of answers you could give; the cops who were sent to evict him, the owner of the building who sent the cops, the community who didn’t help him, the person or company that sold him the alcohol, the alcohol itself, or even just himself. I can’t objectively say that this man “died by capitalism,” but I can say that it might have been prevented under a different economic system, that this is a systemic problem that requires a systemic solution.
That’s why the “victims of communism” numbers and lists that get thrown around are all bullshit, it’s entirely subjective. If you want to be objective you have to be specific about the cause of death and whose actions directly resulted in it.
But killing and revolution is an intrinsic part of a communist state, no? The whole uproot the rich and kill them? Historically, this seems to be the case at least, particularly China and the Soviet Union.
Killing and revolution is an intrinsic part of transforming society, whether that’s from feudalism to capitalism or capitalism to communism. Listen, as an anarchist I’m not personally a fan of China and the Soviet Union either, but the demonization of communism as if it’s this brutal and violent ideology is just silly. Violence and brutality are the tools of the state, no matter its’ economic system. The actions of China or the Soviet Union are attributable only to China or the Soviet Union, not communism.
If you want to attribute a death to the economic system of communism you have to explain how the economic system resulted in that death. I attribute the deaths of homeless people to capitalism because there is a clear line of causality to follow, but like I said before there are many layers of abstraction and the determination is a subjective and philosophical one. When a cop kills someone capitalism is often a factor, but I don’t blame capitalism, I blame the state.
Violence and brutality are the tools of the state, no matter its’ economic system. The actions of China or the Soviet Union are attributable only to China or the Soviet Union, not communism.
Yes, but it is communism that gave rise to these states, and they do these actions in the name of being a communist state as well. Like purges were common.
Homelessness in the soviet union is very interesting, though. It wasn’t reported often due to cultural reasons, falling under ‘social waste’ and work ethic, so we don’t have much to work with other than some personal experiences and modern exploration. It existed, but the government didn’t report it for fear of looking weak.
regardless, these states did engage in genocide against dissidents and minorities, which you cannot deny. That’s the main focus of this post.
regardless, these states[emphasis mine] did engage in genocide against dissidents and minorities, which you cannot deny.
I don’t deny it, I just disagree that those actions are attributable to the economic system. The economic system of communism is fine, it’s the marxist conception of the intelligentsia seizing the state and establishing a “dictatorship of the proletariat” that leads to problems. The responsible party for genocide is the state that carried it out, not communism. If not in the name of communism, they would have done so in the name of some other belief system.
Except they did do it for the sake of communism; it’s in their own wording.
I’m not disagreeing with you but capitalism has been around a lot longer
They have a point, though. Compare life expectancy in China --even during the Great Leap Forward and the Four Pests Campaign to life in (for example) colonized India. Communism wasn’t great, but compare it to the alternative. I’m not a fan of China, i’m an anarchist, but some of the criticism is just red scare bullshit and not backed by facts.
It’s important to note that India was also reeling from a very rocky partition with no Western support or severance. I personally think a more apt comparison is North and South Korea, I don’t even need to show you their comparison
Still, when compared to its Western rivals, China doesn’t look nearly as impressive, especially not in current times where China remains near the bottom (though still above India, that’s not much of a brag.)
Regardless, please take note of their denial and praise of genocide–That’s the centre topic to focus on here
I don’t think North vs South Korea is a real comparison at all. First of all, it’s not what the post is talking about. Secondly, the North Korean government is not materially Communist in nature. Thirdly, there are some additional factors in play that are depressing North Korea’s economic and medical ability, such as sanctions from the West. Not that i think North Korea would beat South Korea without the sanctions or anything, i doubt it would be particularly close.
China is catching up to the US, thanks to the US’s insane and dysfunctional health care system. They’re not going to beat Europe any time soon, but that’s a tough ask. Europe is doing quite well, and has been for a long time.
It’s not like China’s revolution was smooth sailing, either. I think that’s partly why those two are a reasonable comparison, despite being so different in so many ways. They were both doing about as poorly as each other on life expectancy up to their respective revolutions–in fairness, India was doing a little worse by the life expectancy metric but not by much.
Isn’t North and South Korea the best comparison for life expectancy versus communism/capitalism? One’s communist, the other is capitalist, and both received incredible funding and infrastructure from both superpowers. I mean look! Doesn’t this add to the fact that everyone’s life expectancy increased, not just one country soaring past the others?
Regardless tho~ The main point is the whole genocide-denying part.
Isn’t North and South Korea the best comparison for life expectancy versus communism/capitalism?
No, specifically because North Korea is not communist in any meaningful sense of the word. There’s no reason to believe it is representative of a generic communist state, and it does not compare well to the majority (to any?) of the communist states out there. Even if you do consider it communist, it is an outlier among those states. It simply does not make sense.
That chart does show North and South Korean life expectancies increasing at a similar rate (until the mid 90s, of course) but that does not mean there’s no difference in other states. Yes, life expectancy has been increasing globally but it is not uniformly distributed. China went from “average” to “above average” since the Communist Revolution. India went from “below average” to “below average”.
We could also look at Cuba or Vietnam as examples (looking at 2020). They’re much smaller and i don’t have the same kind of data on hand for them, but compared to the global numbers they’re closer to the “more developed countries” than they are to the global average. Again, India, is down in the “less developed countries”. If you care, North Korea is at 75 in 2020, above the global average despite… everything going on there. And yes, for the record, South Korea is doing better. They’re doing better than most, even better than (for example) Germany.
(I do not know how trustworthy those numbers are for North Korea tbh. I know China’s 2020 and beyond numbers have also been criticized but I’m working with what I have.)
And yes, life expectancy is not the be-all, end-all measurement of all value. It does matter, though.
Compare life expectancy in China --even during the Great Leap Forward and the Four Pests Campaign to life in (for example) colonized India.
Okay. 1965 - Chinese life expectancy was 44.
1965 - Indian life expectancy was 44.
Just look at the graph of Asia 1959. That is the Great Chinese Famine - the cause of which lies very much with the CCP.
(In particular, it lies with the aforementioned “four pests” campaign though there were plenty of other horrible decisions made around that time.)
Alright then, fine. Pulling out some actual stats:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041350/life-expectancy-china-all-time/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041383/life-expectancy-india-all-time/
At the worst part of the Great Leap Forward, China was still slightly ahead of India: 44.6 to 43. Everywhere else (and to this day), they’re meaningfully ahead. (How Communist they are in the modern era may be up for debate, though.) The Chinese Communist Revolution took place over a long period of time but was pretty well concluded by 1949. India got its independence in 1947, at a very similar time. Ten years later is roughly the period we’re talking about, but ten years after that China has pulled well ahead of India. In 1970, China’s life expectancy was 55 while India’s was 46.
In addition to that, let’s take a look at conditions before the respective revolutions. In China, life was pretty horrible. Life expectancy was flat and only started going up toward the end of the Communist Revolution. In India, under British rule, it was even worse. This isn’t a small detail, it is a major, catastrophic failure of The West and colonialist capitalism in general. If we’re saying Communist China was bad because of the Four Pests campaign then what kind of failure does that make Britain, which failed to address the horrendous living conditions in India for decades?
The Chinese Communist Revolution took place over a long period of time but was pretty well concluded by 1949. India got its independence in 1947, at a very similar time. Ten years later is roughly the period we’re talking about, but ten years after that China has pulled well ahead of India.
“Pulled ahead” might make more sense if they were at the same position in 1950, around when they got their independence. They were not. There’s a 7 year gap between them in 1950, and by 1965 there’s a two year gap. Great success, China! Really pulled ahead by (checks notes) letting India catch up.
Life expectancy was flat and only started going up toward the end of the Communist Revolution.
As did life expectancy everywhere else in the world at the same time. Must be that worldwide revolution I keep hearing so much about.
In India, under British rule, it was even worse.
1945 life expectancy in India: 32, according to the source you provided.
1945 life expectancy in China: 33, according to the source you provided.
Fuck’s sake.
You know there are easier ways to critique colonialism and capitalism than trying to bootlick Mao and the CCP, right?
There’s a 7 year gap between them in 1950, and by 1965 there’s a two year gap.
1965 is again the one point at which they actually overlap in any meaningful way. Let’s look at that 20 year time period: in 1950, India was at 34, in 1970 it was at 46. In other words, from approximately 20 years after India gained independence its life expectancy increased by 12. In 1950, China was at 40, in 1970 it was at 55. In approximately 20 years since the Communist revolution, life expectancy increased by 15. I think it’s relevant that India was starting from further back but i don’t think that’s the only thing that mattered
As did life expectancy everywhere else in the world at the same time. Must be that worldwide revolution I keep hearing so much about.
Both India and China came a long way from the start of the 20th century and it’s a little insulting to suggest they have not. Looking at the statista numbers again, the global average was an appalling 31 in 1900. India was an even more appalling 22, by comparison China was actually doing well at 32. By 2020, the global average has risen to 73 while China is now beating that even more at 76.6 and India is not quite there at 69. (An increase of 44.6 for China, a comparatively better 47 for India, and 42 for the world.) For comparison to that, the United States was at 46 in 1900 and rose to 79 in 2020, a lesser but still not bad 33 years improvement. Western Europe is similar.
Life expectancy has improved globally, but both India and China have beaten the average.
1945 life expectancy in India…
Try looking at, say, 1900 or any of the period prior to that. It was below the global average, it was bad and it was bad for a hundred years. In fact, comparing a hundred years back to 1900 it was actually decreasing in India over those hundred years. China wasn’t doing great, but it was doing better prior to the Communist Revolution than India was under Colonial rule.
I’m licking any fucking boots, here, and i’m not about to overlook the evils of colonialism. I am dealing with the numbers.
In other words, from approximately 20 years after India gained independence its life expectancy increased by 12. In 1950, China was at 40, in 1970 it was at 55. In approximately 20 years since the Communist revolution, life expectancy increased by 15.
“In 20 years, the historically developed ethnostate increased its life expectancy three (3) more years than a country which, to this day, lacks a common ethnicity or language and whose development has been uneven at best”
Wow, great work CCP, I bow before the Great Leaps Forward of Mao.
I think it’s relevant that India was starting from further back but i don’t think that’s the only thing that mattered
You thought it relevant enough to completely ignore it until it was pointed out, how sweet.
I’m licking any fucking boots, here, and i’m not about to overlook the evils of colonialism. I am dealing with the numbers.
You quite clearly are licking boots in trying to justify the horrific crimes of Mao and the CCP by playing some “Life expectancy went UP” game while ignoring contemporary trends and trying to play ‘whataboutism’ games with India using some dubious reading of life expectancy statistics to try to prove that Stalinist-style totalitarianism of the kind that even the Soviet Union had abandoned by that time was actually A Net Good™.
Both India and China came a long way from the start of the 20th century and it’s a little insulting to suggest they have not. Looking at the statista numbers again, the global average was an appalling 31 in 1900. India was an even more appalling 22, by comparison China was actually doing well at 32.
Would you kindly read aloud for the class what your own source says is the life expectancy of the two countries at 1900?
I also love how the argument goes from “Life expectancy went UP when the Communist Party came into power! Correlation is causation!” to “Well, they beat the average world life expectancy 40 years later!”
We’re fucking done here, bootlicker.
“In 20 years, the historically developed ethnostate increased its life expectancy three (3) more years than a country which, to this day, lacks a common ethnicity or language and whose development has been uneven at best”
This is a weird ass argument. China was not a historically developed ethnostate during this time period. It had–and still has, much to the disappointment of its leaders–a number of different ethnic groups. Just because the Han dominate modern Chinese society does not mean there are no other ethnic groups there. China did not have a common language at this time, either, though it’s working hard to stamp them all out but one.
You thought it relevant enough to completely ignore it until it was pointed out, how sweet.
I was aware of this before you pointed it out, but i didn’t feel like it warranted inclusion. That’s not the one true measurement, either. It isn’t my job, here, to include every possible alternate look at the data. I’m not writing a doctoral thesis here, this isn’t a “gotcha”. There’s still really only one period where India wins this comparison, and it’s during a historically dramatic (and, yes, self-inflicted) famine in China.
You quite clearly are licking boots in trying to justify the horrific crimes of Mao and the CCP…
I am doing no such thing. Don’t read weird bullshit into my arguments.
Would you kindly read aloud for the class…
These are different numbers and… don’t really refute anything i said? “Life expectancy” is different from “life expectancy from birth” and i have been careful to compare like-for-like in this thread.
"…Correlation is causation!”
This is a sound argument and it does mean we can’t draw definitive conclusions from this, but these numbers do contradict the narrative that everything in China (or whatever Communist country you like) is horrible.
We’re fucking done here, bootlicker.
Cool.
Just because the Han dominate modern Chinese society does not mean there are no other ethnic groups there
Ah, so Israel isn’t an ethnostate either, because other ethnicities exist, lmao
These are different numbers and… don’t really refute anything i said? “Life expectancy” is different from “life expectancy from birth” and i have been careful to compare like-for-like in this thread.
“These are different numbers”
It’s literally the link you provided, lmao
