Hello Comrades. This general is for the discussion of Marxism-Leninism, the ideology of revolutionary socialism and communism.
Communism is the next stage of humanity following the capitalist stage.
What exactly is communism according to Marxist-Leninists:
>Communism is a stage of society in which the productive infrastructure is socially owned, and goods are produced not in order to sell for profit, but in order to meet a social need.
>Communism in it's full form is a stateless, classless society that follows the maxim "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need."
>To acheive such a society Marxism-Leninism teaches us that we must replace the capitalist state, which is controlled by the capitalist class, by a socialist state, which is controlled by the working class. Then, a period of class struggle follows in which the capitalist class is liquidated by the working class. When the capitalist class has been completely vanquished, there will be only one class, the working class, and eventually the functions of the state will become indistinguishable from the functions of the society as a whole, and the state as such will 'wither away' as Marx said.
Communism: >has never existed, despite multiple attempts >every attempt leads to mass starvation of their own people >is easily subverted through other ideologies >solves no problems that other ideologies don't already solve better >no clear solution to fix constant failures >claims human nature either doesn't exist, or is easy to change >fixes none of the cultural issues that would derive from total automation of industry
Fascism: >no two fascist nations have ever gone to war with each other >fascism has never had a mass starvation problem >fascism has actually existed, and it fixes all the problems communism seeks to solve >early fascist failures are easily solved by reducing aggression and warmongering, as shown by other successful fascist nations >utilizes human nature by designing a system meant to take advantage of it >fixes all of the cultural issues that would derive from total automation of industry
Honestly I never thought I would consider myself a Communist, I was a pretty typical Libertarian guy, slowly becoming more and more libertarian. Then I found out that just about everything I thought communism was was wrong. So I did what I always did with new information that was challenging my beliefs. I pretended I believed they were correct, and argued them against other people. I argued about communism in significantly smarter places than Sup Forums, and what I eventually found was that there really are no good counter-arguments, just good strawman arguments.
Adam Fisher
It says 20.1 and that data is old.
Christopher Gomez
>fixes none of the cultural issues that would derive from total automation of industry What, exactly, are these cultural issues?
Jack Martin
>no good counter-arguments, just good strawman arguments What about human nature? >"it doesn't exist" :-/
Connor Garcia
Such as?
Luke Jones
Show me irrefutable proof Communisys didn't hack the election. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Plus there is always the egoist point of view that because humans are individuals and "humanity" is a spook human nature is a spook and humans can act in any way they want. Its pretty dumb.
Adam Anderson
>What about human nature? What, precisely, is the meaning of the phrase "human nature", that people so often bring up, because it seems like it's vague phrase that can be easily filled with meaning after a response.
Charles Parker
It did Trump is literally a communist. We fooled you all. 80 dimensional starcraft, niggas
Dylan Edwards
>all these implications >not a single argument
Ian Flores
Go away
Angel Martin
No.
Colton Morgan
a fucking (((LEAF)))
Oliver Moore
>leddit gross Why do you go there?
Ethan Wilson
Really Leaf? You're really going to keep shitting up this board?
Fuck off and DIE
Ryder Baker
I don't, I stole this from someone else who likely stole it from someone else who goes there
Austin Gutierrez
so is anyone ready to answer my question about the LTV yet or are we still memeing and revising history?
Dylan James
Lack of purpose due to lack of productive work. A likely decline in religiousness. Degeneracy caused due to an undisciplined society that has never had to work. Society panic should the machines ever fail or resources run low. A permanent state of "weak men" caused by "good times". Societal discontentment caused by the dissolution of nations. Cultural conflicts caused by the destruction of borders. Religious wars caused by Islamists and Christians not wanting any part of communism. A dead family life and spoiled children.
Basically, we'll just kind of "exist", but have nothing to do. Want to paint a picture? A robot can paint one 10 times better than you. Build a house? It won't be bought by anyone, and a robot can build one at a tenth of the cost.
Gabriel Baker
The strawman arguments? Saying that socialists want to take away people's personal property. Saying that it always ends in failure (which is a statement that has to then lead to a lot of replies from different angles in order to get down to why it's a foolish statement). Trying to equate all forms of socialism to Marxist-Leninism. The "NOT REAL SOCIALISM AHAHAHAHAH" argument. And then in general not having a fucking clue what they're talking about, like not even understanding the definitions of the words they're using. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a great grasp on all these topics, I still don't quite know what Maoism is, but I am astonished at how vocal some people are who are so uninformed. The amount of times I have heard the phrase "communist government" is just fucking stupid.
Matthew Morgan
>>>/leftypol/ scum
Samuel Gutierrez
One of the only things I enjoy about Fascism in National Socialism was the enthusiasm and uniform chants. That's how you get the workers united against the evil elitist satanists that veil themselves in the capitalist class.
Why can't we have a non-anti semetic nazi workers army ? It's too bad many of you are caught up in your ethno-state ambitions of national socialism. I found Nazi chants and their labor army to be a great example of a powerful work force ready to bring change and productivity.
>>no two fascist nations have ever gone to war with each other Going to war with everything else doesnt make it good >>fascism has never had a mass starvation problem Germany, North Korea >>fascism has actually existed, and it fixes all the problems communism seeks to solve As said a better shit does not mean that shit is good for you >>early fascist failures are easily solved by reducing aggression and warmongering, as shown by other successful fascist nations Capitalism does it better >>utilizes human nature by designing a system meant to take advantage of it What? Sounds like religious bull argument taken from the ass >>fixes all of the cultural issues that would derive from total automation of industry By surpressing different thinking, nice
William Watson
>productive infrastructure is socially owned So run along and buy shares of stock of whatever company you like. You commies are fucking thick.
John Harris
riddle me this. Why do retards think that communism and anarchism are the same thing even though the end goal of communism is 1: A very specific form of stateless society and not a typical anarchist society 2: An internally inconsistent ideology that requires a state to enforce its maxims despite the fact that it advocates for statelessness
Jack Cook
pol pot was backed by the USA.
Colton Foster
You really want to do this again, boyo?
Brandon Peterson
Maoism is basically marxism-Leninism but with more focus on peasants and farms and stuff and with some Chinese cultural characteristics.
Joseph Ward
All animals on Earth are predisposed towards certain behaviors based on natural instincts and mental developments forged through billions of years of evolution. Communism treats humanity as some kind of special exception to this fact, despite all science and human history pointing out otherwise.
Ayden Richardson
>Why can't we have a non-anti semetic nazi workers army So like Mussolini, creator of fascism? Cause he's the fascist I prefer.
Cameron Garcia
On 4 May 2013, Jobbik members protested against the World Jewish Congress in Budapest, claiming the protest was against "a Jewish attempt to buy up Hungary".[96] Jobbik MP Enikő Hegedűs vociferously condemned both Israel and Jews at the rally as her husband, Lóránt Hegedűs Jr., stood nearby.[97] An ordained minister in the Reformed Church in Hungary, Lóránt Hegedűs himself had served in the National Assembly as an MP of the far-right nationalist Hungarian Justice and Life Party from 1998 to 2002.[98] He invited Holocaust denier David Irving to his Budapest church in 2007 as a "special guest",[98] and has also been accused of anti-Semitism on several occasions for statements he has made about Jews at Jobbik events. At a 2011 rally, he claimed that Jews orchestrated World War II and controlled the international media,[99] and a year prior had alleged that the Hungarian government was secretly cooperating with Mossad to facilitate an Israeli takeover of Hungary with the assistance of Hungarian Jews and mainstream churches.[100] After his wife's statement regarding the World Jewish Congress, the Reformed Church launched an inquiry into the minister's conduct, with presiding bishop Gusztáv Bölcskei denouncing Hegedűs's activism for Jobbik as "permanent provocation" which was incompatible with scripture.[97]
Easton Myers
I see we're still being retards instead of actually arguing
Michael Edwards
Nationalism kind of terrible, too.
Xavier Jackson
North Korea isn't fascist
Christian Green
why do you refuse to seek help?
Matthew Thomas
And that is capitalism? If anything evolution would reward working together.
But..we capitalists don't deny that these countries were also capitalist. The difference is that capitalism is just an economic system. Whereas communism is a whole socieopolitical ideology and style of government. Therefore, you can attribute heinous acts committed by government in the name of communism to communism because it is at its core a political system. But you can't do the same for capitalism because capitalism is not a method of governance, it is purely and solely an economic system
Angel Harris
You're going to have tribalism whether you have nations or not, at least with fascism you get borders so that the only time two cultures kill each other are in official declarations of war. It's not like the Russians and Islamists, or Japanese and Chinese are suddenly going to get along just because the nations no longer exist.
Colton Richardson
>Lack of purpose due to lack of productive work. The thing is, that once work is automated, people can be productive exactly as they wish to. I like making stuffed animals for my friends, I like hiking and frisbee, etc etc. But I cannot do these things full time, for obvious reasons. People often say that everyone would be lazy and just sit on the couch all day if all work were automated, but I think that's a bit of short-sightedness. Yes, if we waved a magic wand and RIGHT NOW all work was automated and no one could have a job, the vast majority of people would be lazy all day for a while, but even that would end, I have been a NEET in the past, it is mind-blowingly boring and it got to the point where every day I felt like I needed to force myself to do something interesting. But even still, a culture can be built around encouraging people to do things.
>A likely decline in religiousness. Eh I don't feel like having a religious discussion. It'll just create tangents.
>Degeneracy caused due to an undisciplined society that has never had to work. I think that gets answered by my earlier statement. And besides, people have to work now and we have quite a bit of degeneracy. I don't quite think degeneracy and work 100% linked.
>Society panic should the machines ever fail or resources run low. That's not much of a valid concern given how advanced AI is going to be, and how much effort would be focused on inter-planetary travel under communism.
>A permanent state of "weak men" caused by "good times". I feel like whoever made that statement has never done anything competitive or athletic in his life. The general times around you don't necessarily make you a strong or weak person. That is dependent on what you personally do. We've been in good times for quite a while and yet plenty of strong people have been born and raised and work hard in our society, because they were also hardworking athletes or they were raised well by their parents.
Ryder Mitchell
Socialism is just worker (not state) ownership of the means of production. Nothing else. Stop spreading misinformation.
Lincoln Watson
...
Jacob Parker
Well I'm no capitalist, but while evolution does reward working together to an extent, we are still tribalistic creatures. We take care of our own before we take care of others.
Heck, if you consider the development of human culture a natural part of humanity, then inter-human conflict is inevitable, as these cultures will inevitably conflict as they have always done.
Easton White
>capitalism is just an economic system OH SHIT NIGGER WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Ayden White
A retarded commie from SF called in to Dr. Savage's show today and utterly embarrassed himself. Guy had no fuckin answers. Savage was barely interested in doing the show today and still dick whipped this commie cuck who actually admitted on air that he runs a "VERY small home phone repair business". Made me think every 21st century commie is actually even more uselss than previously thought
Julian Morgan
>Islamists Communists are the ones fighting them right now in Syria.
>"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions"
Of course differences in language will persist between groups, but that does not necessitate war, hatred and oppression.
Gabriel Miller
I guess if you would use the same brush for people who attempted to establish capitalism in the beginning, which was also born in blood, to the mercantile and feudal systems, you might get away with that. Then you would be on even footing. It's still pretty stupid, because you're saying there are systemic problems in ones that haven't existed yet.
Jayden Peterson
In a mutually beneficial union helping yourself helps others. We can either separate people based on culture or let them separate themselves.
Juan Green
Also, saying that state capitalism isn't a thing is kind of dumb too.
Easton Nelson
>"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions" This is probably my biggest problem with communists. Not what you just said, but the fact that you are just repeating what someone else said on the issue. You HAVE to subscribe to Marxist thought on basically every aspect of human life for communism to work, and I just don't believe Marx when he says most of what he does.
Nathan Johnson
Fuck off
Aaron Morris
>Societal discontentment caused by the dissolution of nations. I'd need you to elaborate on this. Why would people be discontent because they don't live in a country anymore? The entire idea of a "country" would probably disappear eventually because it no longer makes sense. If you mean the desire for a tribe, that'd probably be replaced with friends & family (or sports teams?), you know, the actual tribes we used to have.
>Cultural conflicts caused by the destruction of borders. That probably would be an issue to be fair, but it's not like we're going to snap our fingers and have communism right NOW.
>Religious wars caused by Islamists and Christians not wanting any part of communism. Maybe? I don't know if Christians are going to care enough in large enough numbers for war.
>A dead family life and spoiled children. I'm not so sure, gold-diggers would be gone, so men and women could get together and the man can trust the woman actually loves them and won't just fuck them over. Spoiled children is a bit relative, that comes down to good parenting, not letting your kid have anything they want is a problem even without automation.
>Basically, we'll just kind of "exist", but have nothing to do. Except exactly what the hell we want to. If you want to paint, you can do it to impress you friends instead of having to do it to appeal to a bunch of idiots (in this specific case it's rich people who can't see the modern-art-emperor isn't wearing any clothes) so you can make enough money to survive.
Elijah Anderson
>tribalism Depends on what you mean by tribalism. We don't have literal tribes anymore for instance. Tribalism in the beginning was just a means to an ends anyway.
Aaron Phillips
>All animals on Earth are predisposed towards certain behaviors based on natural instincts and mental developments forged through billions of years of evolution. And what are the predispositions of humans, exactly? And how do they not coincide with Communism?
Alexander Scott
Not really, I just see him as a very prescient thinker. Marxist theory is constantly being updated, revised and rethought of. Dialectics in action.
Adam Moore
>The difference is that capitalism is just an economic system. And so is socialism >Whereas communism is a whole socieopolitical ideology and style of government. Communism is just anarchist-socialism. >Therefore, you can attribute heinous acts committed by government in the name of communism to communism because it is at its core a political system. A political system that requires no government to exist. There is no such thing as a communist government, that's an oxymoron.
Juan Bell
This doesn't seem like an argument. Is this an argument?
Aiden Bailey
I'm pretty sure it's not an argument, famarade
Zachary Carter
I agree, one option is for the working class to engage the financial markets and become literate in it doing so; this was totally the agenda of western capitalism post 1970's crises of laor/oil/sustainability of western consumption practices.
Partially the solution I argue was that the capitalist class wanted to allow for the working class to exercise industrial democracy through the financial markets, but this solution and how it's played is obviously up to debate.
The working class in many ways does not, and would likely face challenges in exercising industrial democracy in favor of the worker against the capitalist hegemony; some you might imagine.
To name off a few, firms and shareholders already have a plethora of issues over shareholder rights, legal insulation from damages for management, when management owns shares, share class, etc.
For finance to be communist, IMO many laws in finance and banking would have to be changed and modified to reflect delegation of more decision making authority for workers, perhaps less legal insulation for executives, etc. many things might be suggested. Interesting theoretical consideration.
Nathaniel Morris
why does Garrison label all his comics?
are rightists that silly?
Henry Lewis
>are rightists that silly? yes
Hunter Ross
That's quite the charming chat, nest dweller.
Colton Perry
What's ironic about that image is that Marx doesn't even really use science or consistent evidence to prove his point, he just kind states his opinion on everything and expects everyone to believe it. He comes across more like a philosopher than a historian or scientist of any kind.
Anthony Gomez
...
Jace Sullivan
...
Ethan Gonzalez
You really want to do this?
John Ramirez
>literally stealing other people's work to propagandize communism really makes you think
Ryder Russell
>India >Populated by pseudo ingress >And run under Nehruist socialism
Try again Red.
Easton Hall
From where do you fucking draw this? Marx was basically the first person to ever attempt to make a mathematical model of human society. As well as capitalism in and of itself.
>implying memes don't build off each other and add different spins on themselves. If it was done your way Pepe would never have gotten past "feels good man"
Hunter Hughes
>Sup Forums steals from ben >everything's cool >leftist steal from ben >Sup Forums bitches about people stealing from ben made me tinkle
Ryan Kelly
You really want to do this?
Jaxon Phillips
Not a great comparison. Those slum folk are probably still better fed.
Brayden Parker
>Nehruist socialism Don't use terms way above your IQ level
Eli Martin
Why would you advocate for a system that would give you an objectively worse quality of life? Are you really that butthurt that some people earn more money than you that you'd cut your nose off to spite your face? Literally nobody in a capitalist western democracy would benefit from moving to communism. Nobody. We'd all be worse off in every measurable way. But hey at least we'd all be 'equal' in our misery
Jason Cooper
Crashing this thread with no survivors
John Williams
Also to put an addendum on my statement "mathematical model of human society", because I know it will be misunderstood, I don't mean mathematical in a literal sense of numbers but in the sense of "if this occurs, then this will naturally follow" sense.
>Soviet Russia (and China and Cuba) are somehow communists, or even socialist.
Communism can't work in a world that hasn't eliminated scarcity. Communism can't work in a society of any significant size due to Dunbar's number.
Zachary Rodriguez
>Socialism has the very specific definition of socialized production >Communism has the very specific definition of anarchist-socialism >USSR and Cuba were specifically based around Marxist-Leninism >China was based around Marxist-Leninist-Maoism >M-L and M-L-M are about industrializing a nation so that it can eventually become socialist. >Somehow we just ignore that last part and just say the USSR, Cuba and China were communist.
Carter Nguyen
>Communism can't work in a world that hasn't eliminated scarcity. Why do you think there's such a focus on science and engineering as well as space travel?
>Communism can't work in a society of any significant size due to Dunbar's number. ...why?
William Brooks
You see, I see al this people from communist countries flying away to capitalists countries.
If you like communism so much why don't you take the next flight to Cuba, Venezuela, or northn Korea? Don't bring anything. It doesn't belong to you there anyways...
Gavin Wright
>lefty/pol/ and Sup Forums causing a shitstorm on r/socialism
Admit it lefty, youre just wannabe Strasserists
Evan Price
Please explain how exactly communist-countries are a thing that can exist. Please also explain how Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea are communist countries.
Alexander Price
Reaching for a post-scarcity society is a great endeavor and one I fully support. But it's decades if not centuries away. Assuming it's even possible, and that's a huge assumption.
And Dunbar's number basically means that all human beings are psychologically incapable of caring enough about much more than a hundred or so people, which puts a serious damper on socialism which is inherently dependent upon the empathy of the average human being.
Socialism can work well in small, tribal structures. But once a society gets too large for any given member to know (and care about) every other member, it all falls apart.
Ayden Davis
>You also see people from capitalist countries fleeing to capitalist countries rlly tinks me make
Anthony Bailey
>a post scarcity society >impossible by definition because humans will always compete for resources >i-it's just around the corner! top fucking kek
Noah Rivera
>asserism
no thanks Glad the liberals on leddit are getting fucked tho.
Brayden Rivera
>boo hoo! Why can't homeless people live on other people's property without their permission! thanks for that image, I guess
Connor Green
Let me ask you, would you like to live in a hooverville?
Zachary Watson
>Reaching for a post-scarcity society is a great endeavor and one I fully support. But it's decades if not centuries away. Assuming it's even possible, and that's a huge assumption. In a free economy, probably, because there isn't enough short-term benefit for post-scarcity. To give an example (which probably isn't the perfect example but I think it will get the point across), fusion. If we had a planned economy dedicated to creating fusion reactors, we would likely achieve it fairly quickly (compared to in a free economy), because there is direct benefit. But fusion is something that requires so much work and so many resources and probably a few decades, as well as so many expenses, that no one can invest in it. No one with the wealth to invest in such a thing would do so without being guaranteed the benefits and a way to profit. This is the issue with investing in general, it stunts long-term benefit for short-term benefit. This is why companies with heavy competition can paradoxically tend to not to innovate, because if they invested large amounts of money into an innovation, they would just be bought up by the opposing company who just kept their shareholders happy. It's also worth keeping in mind that even in an un-planned economy, we are going to have human-level general AI by possibly even the 2040s, at this point humans will be made completely obsolete in the workforce.
>which puts a serious damper on socialism which is inherently dependent upon the empathy of the average human being. ...What? Socialism is just about socializing production, so that anyone can produce and have what they need and want. There is no need for empathy or any emotion towards others.
>Socialism can work well in small, tribal structures. But once a society gets too large for any given member to know (and care about) every other member, it all falls apart. Again, what does caring about others have to do with socialism? That's just called not being a dick.
