Criticizing Marxism

I've begun reading The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn and I would definitely like to know what fellow Sup Forumsfolk think of it if they're read it. The book details the horrors that Stalin visited upon the Soviet people thru Marxist ideology. The primary reason I began reading is because my best and oldest friend is a very deep liberal and socialist in contrast my own views, and I thought it would be wise to educate myself so I can face him with a bit more knowledge.

The thing is, I think he advocates Marxism because he is a college student and we live in California, and I feel that when inevitably we get into another political discussion (which we do frequently) he will say the argument that everyone has heard - Russia under Stalin was socialism done wrong. China under Mao was socialism done wrong. I'm not really sure how to refute this point effectively other than questioning the notion that a "properly done" socialist nation would remain under benevolent and effective rulership for a very long time.

How do you feel about Marxism and socialism and how do you respond to that argument?

Other urls found in this thread:

badnameofrussia.ru/Solzhenicyn-Aleksandr1.php
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

>Americans have to read a book to know communism is bad
You guys don't get taught this stuff in school?

Marxism is a corrupt putrid ideology that destroys human nature by converting man into needy babies that can't do anything for themselves.
Only National """Socialism""" has ever worked.

>You guys don't get taught this stuff in school?
Well, no. Our education system is a mess, particularly in Los Angeles, and politics have been meddling rather aggressively in the education of our youth since 1980, if not longer. The brainwashing is even worse in our universities. When I was in high school we were primarily briefed on the horrors of Nazi Germany, but very little time was spent on Soviet Russia and I can't remember a single mention of Mao Zedong.

Quit it with the banter for like 5 seconds.
In the west Communism is normalized (((For Some Reason))). Schools almost never talk about the implications of Communism and how they fucked up society but they sure do love to talk about how the big bad white colonialists ruled the world and took everything from the poor minorities :(

Dude, the Communist manifesto is third most read book on the US college campuses.
They don't even know there were purges, starving and millions of dead.

Yes, I'm currently on the second chapter of The Gulag Archipelago and the author has detailed what he calls "waves" of arrests/executions. I of course imagine my friend would argue that this was a product of Stalin and his secret police, and not of communism itself.

Marx himself said in an interview with an English newspaper that a Socialist revolution would by necessity have to be bloody (his word).

Bloodshed is inherent to Marxism s stated by Marx himself. Violent oppression and mass murder is not Socialism done wrong. Socialism is wrong.

The reason why there is always so many dead is because when a socialist cocksuckers tell people to redistribute shit and seize the means of production, overwhelming majority of people tells him to eat shit and kill himself. I work in heavy industry and you would almost never find anyone who wants to bother with the means of production after their shift ends. Most people want to sell their labor, and don't want to bother with maintenance and all the shit that is around the proper working of machinery.
Thus the only way to instate the socialism is the way Stalin and Mao did it, with totalitarian control.

Press your scum of a friend on how he wants to install the socialism, and don't let him to dodge and toss the word salad around, as socialists always do, demand that he describes specifics.

Then shoot him to the back of his head, to make the world a better place.

I did a long time ago, you should read Chekhov's "The Island of Sakhalin" too. Let's be honest, Russia was a fucked up place before commies.

As for Marxism, there is no need to overthink this, it's mostly a Jewish rhethorical trick to blame whites for everything wrong in the world and explain how they should give power to kikes.

It doesn't need to be debunked, you just need to remind people making those arguments are those that have had institutional power for 40 years, they're not the oppressed by any standard, they're the oppressors.

...

> As for Marxism, there is no need to overthink this, it's mostly a Jewish rhethorical trick to blame whites for everything wrong in the world and explain how they should give power to kikes.
> 30% of NKVD chasteners were kikes
> need more poweru!

...

Well my thoughts are this. The closer a country moves towards capitalism, they start to see the benefits and become more prosperous. If socialism produced wealth and happiness too, then the same should be true. The closer you move towards socialism, a nation should get more prosperous. However this is demonstrably false as evidenced by multiple nations, including China and the USSR. So even if we accept that 'full socialism hasn't been tried', that does not negate the argument that it has been attempted and as those nations approached socialism, they did not see anything other than chaos and poverty.

Thank you nii-san for your honorable statement. Admittedly I am not as privy to nature of Marxism, its principles, as I should be to refute it. In fact the depths of my understand for it are more or less seize the means of production.

Well that is a pretty valid argument, and I will definitely utilize it. I suspect he'll put forth some notion that USSR and China were moving only laterally toward "proper" socialism, and that is the cause for the massive poverty and loss of life.

...

>socialism
its shit
>marxism
you can debate for me it's more philosophy than actual science

It is an exhausting book to read. I have to stop regularly to handle it's intensity.
I have always enjoyed some sadism but for the first time reading the second volume I am no longer sure I can entertain myself with the suffering of others. It never seemed to be a moral question before. Now it seems like stabbing myself in the face.
>half a kilo
>half a kilo

>done wrong
>not muh real socialism/communism

It doesn't matter what you do you'll never win. The rules of their game are

>try communism
>did it work?
>no: wasn't real communism
>yes: real communism

So every failure is attributed to anything but their shit ideology. Also funny is that those advocating for it are actually those who think that "it would've worked if only I had been in charge, if only I had been grand leader I could have made it work". These people think they are miles ahead of Castro, they think Kim ll sung was a fool and they could do better. Beware of these people OP. These are the type of people who would send you to the gulags you read about without a second thought should they ever reach power.

Also bonus question for your mate; right now we have a shit version of capitalism in most countries; government intervention, cronyism etc. This mutated form of capitalism has somehow still created the best living standards known to man, where his biggest issue is dying from abundance. How is it that when someone tries capitalism and fails we end up with MRI machines, f35s and iPhones and when someone tries socialism and fails we get mass starvation and gulags?

>You guys don't get taught this stuff in school?

Of course not, the schools are run by communists

Yeah I'm having a hard time digesting the sheer density of the horrors it details, and it's almost comical for me how ridiculously, ludicrously vile the conduct of the Soviet's secret police and leaders were, to a bizarrely overt degree.

lol!
Don't read A. Soljenitsin. He is liar and phantasyst. Also, Soljenitsin can be translated to eanglish as liar. If you want real hardcore true about prison colonies, you must read Varlaam Shalamov, and yo must read criticism to Soljenitsin.
Also, marxism and comunism, has many weak points this is clear.
Stalin was Red Emperror. This is heresy in eyes of classicists.
I think, marxism and communism is too rdical.
Social-democracy without multiculturalism and without nationalism - good chhoice.

>there are people out there who believe they can seize all the means of production and have it run as efficiently as before while removing nearly all the incentive

Karl Marx was an autist who hadn't the slightest clue about human nature. A single conversation with another person would have been enough for him to realize that his dumb shit would never work outside of a totalitarian state that is all controlling and all powerful. Hell one that was that and ran off forced labor camps even collapsed. Even with forced labor camps where you can work people to death it still cannot sustain itself. Fucking pure autism

Which is why if Communism is taught in the public schools at all it's to present Communists as harmless victims of "Red scares", McCarthyism, "anti-immigrant hysteria" and so on.

>Also bonus question for your mate; right now we have a shit version of capitalism in most countries; government intervention, cronyism etc. This mutated form of capitalism has somehow still created the best living standards known to man, where his biggest issue is dying from abundance. How is it that when someone tries capitalism and fails we end up with MRI machines, f35s and iPhones and when someone tries socialism and fails we get mass starvation and gulags?

Holy fuck.

Yeah I was kind of cooking up something like this after a previous user made a remark about how societies that approach capitalism tend to thrive and societies that approach socialism tend to spiral into poverty and death.

Solzhenitsyn named specific names, times, and places and sourced as much as he could, including the writings of Shalamov you mention. If he had been making anything up, there were many people mentioned in the books who could have defended their reputations (rather than just lamely accusing him of lying).

Halfway through, if he wasn't such a nice writer I would have stopped long ago. Hearing people lined up and forced to dig into frozen ground and then fill it back up and stand idle in the summer only to later dig it again in the winter until death is just too much

I have collected a shitload of arguments against communism, completely destroying its very foundations from all kinds of views. Economically, psychologically, ethically, etc etc. Upon closer inspection literally all of communist """theory""" is a complete failure and simply disgusting.

The problem however is that the typical communist will outright ignore and deny these facts. You can come up with so many perfect refutations, yet they will do everything to keep up their insane belief. They are irrational and amoral beings, psychologically close to women than to humans. You cannot reach them through means of discourse.

Absolutely amazing book - I've read it several times - but really has nothing to do with criticizing "Marxism" whatsoever.

>questioning the notion that a "properly done" socialist nation would remain under benevolent and effective rulership for a very long time.
What other nations have remained under benevolent and effective rulership for a very long time, and how?

Marxism inevitably leads to slavery and famine. Prove me wrong.

Would you care to share any of your arguments? I'd like to at least be able to defend myself from an intellectual standpoint when I do condemn socialism.

>The closer a country moves towards capitalism, they start to see the benefits and become more prosperous. If socialism produced wealth and happiness too, then the same should be true. The closer you move towards socialism, a nation should get more prosperous. However this is demonstrably false as evidenced by multiple nations, including China and the USSR.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*inhales*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

oh boy, thanks for the laughs, you really made my day!

it wasnt so much marxist ideology as judeofascism

Well that's precisely my point. If communism works only under long term, benevolent, effective rulership, and such a thing does not exist, communism isn't exactly feasible, right?

Why would I even try? Marxism is an interesting idea but communism is a failed ideology that, like you said, leads to slavery and famine.

Nevertheless, that's not what the book is really about.

What followed Communism in the USSR wasn't some kind of free-market paradise but rampant cronyism (made possible by powerful politicians) and a continuation of the Soviet Union's pervasive corruption.

Stats from the time of the USSR are demonstrably false, as was any outbound or inbound data collected by the "State".

>Don't read A. Soljenitsin
Into the oven you go bydlo.

If there can't be benevolent, effective rulership, then what's the point of the state, the society, or any hierarchical organization?

Marxism in practice inevitably leads to Communism, whatever tweaks and modifications are implemented along the way. The ideology itself is inherently violent, something Marx doesn't even bother to hide.

It's very interesting how fear of Communism or Marxism is seen as outdated or silly, whilst fear of Nazism is still being exploited as a political boogeyman everywhere.

It's kind of sad that we no longer have the USSR around anymore, it would have served as a great example. Make do with Venezuela; government has seized means of production, price controls, ""free"" stuff etc. socialist paradise. I heard they broke into the zoos and ate flamingos recently from how hungry they are. A country with the worlds largest oil reserves has people dying in the streets and dumpster diving because of socialism. Fucking atrocious.


Another thing; people say all sorts of shit but in the end they make the most important choice with their feet. You have hundreds of fuckers in the US saying how great Cuba is. Documentary after documentary about how good their healthcare is and all that. Don't look at what these people say, look where they go. After filming do they stay? Or do they return to America? Do people in Miami make little rafts and attempt a perilous journey across dangerous waters to land in Cuba or is it the other way around? Were people jumping from West to east in Berlin? All commies talk but in the end never listen to what they say, simply look what they do. They stay put in their comfy capitalist countries. They sip their champagne and browse the Internet on their MacBooks. These people may praise Marxism and communism but ask your friend if tomorrow a communist utopia matching his description popped up if he would go or would he stay in the evil crony capitalist society he lives in now. You know the answer. He knows the answer. We all do and that's why you shouldn't bother arguing, because when it comes down to the crunch he won't go and plow the fields with the proletariat he thinks he is a part of

Have a real graph.

We get told about the lampshades all the time, yet the horrors of Siberia and the Gulags are used as jokes.
If they are ever talked about at all.

WHY?

Well for one I have roads to drive on, and I'm not 100% certain those roads would be there without the state. I've also never been beheaded by religious extremists but I've also never had to personally defend myself from them so I call that a luxury.

Marxism doesn't need to be practiced, though, it's mainly a theory about analyzing human history and society through the lens of economics and class which makes a lot of sense as long as it's not applied too zealously and too universally.

Communism is just evil totalitarian shit like Nazism.

>I'm not really sure how to refute this point
By not going there in the first place? Criticizing socialism in general via "hurr durr Stalin and Mao" is an extremely weak form of argumentation.

You criticize an ideology by having a strong ideological foundation yourself. Read Friedman and Hayek and so forth.

A lot of Canadians in particular are utterly delusional about Cuba. They go on holiday there, are taken around by Communist tour guides who rattle off propaganda that the tourist believes uncritically, they get great food and drink inaccessible to the average Cuban, and maybe they get to fuck a prostitute who is moonlighting from her job as a doctor. And you can't point out anything bad about Cuba without them immediately trying to change the subject to how horrible the US is.

Capitalism has killed more people in history than communism by far. The conquest of colonialism and imperialism is almost always directly related to the expansion of profit. This does not even account for the millions of preventable deaths caused by corporate/ expansion each year

>I'm not 100% certain those roads would be there without the state.

Even the Native Americans made trails. It's not hard.

And your friend knows how to do socialism "right?"

Sorry, your friend would end up disappeared by someone perfectly happy to do socialism "wrong."

I'd like to hear more from you if you don't mind?

>Marxists believe that once communism has been achieved the all powerful and all controlling state will simply dissolve as its purpose has been achieved

Lmfaoooooooooooooo
These guys actually think that once communism has been achieved the Cheka will simply stop their limousine rides, check out of their nice hotels and go and plow the fields alongside the common man. They actually think this behemoth of power will somehow decide one day to drop dead and relinquish all within its grasp. Not only do they believe this, they also think that without the oppressive state to enforce the rules humans will continue to operate as before. The think that humans now free from the nkvd gun at the back of their head will not plow the field a bit longer and trade their neighbor for some of his stuff. That they won't begin to trade and market their goods and services leading to a free market of exchange: capitalism

From what? The economic and population growth ratio is so ridiculously high. What in the hell would you consider a "Death by Capitalism"

>Capitalism has killed more people in history than communism by far

Not even close. Colonialism's death toll has been vastly exaggerated by the Left and the supposed "millions of deaths" due to corporate activity (if you mean things like pollution, the real number is much lower) is easily offset by the increases in lifespan and decreases in mortality due to the huge rise in standard of living brought about by modern industrialized society.

Meanwhile glorious capitalism burns down your fields and lets you starve to death if GMO seeds manage to float to them from the nearby field and you don't have the money to pay for breach of intellectual property.

Well you could argue from the economic calculation problem, and how planned economies lead to capital consumption. Like how soviet economy could only lead to the accumulation of shortages through their production matrices system, and how in the absence of entrepreneurship nothing could fix that.

How is that "capitalism"? It sounds more like an all-powerful State bullying the people on behalf of their private-sector cronies, in which the solution isn't to give the State even more power.

That book is a collection of insipid fucking pap. A twisted lie book at best, read actual verified Soviet archived data, you know, 2-5 million inmates at its pea, not gorillion billions, you aimless sheep fuck.

Oh I see, real capitalism has never been tried.

Well, evidently my knowledge of how society and economics even works is very hollow since most of that more or less floats over my head.

>Only National """Socialism""" has ever worked.

Apart from the fact that it only lasted 12 years.

What they mean when they say 'Russia under Stalin was socialism done wrong' is that they assume they would be the better leader. If they were the dictator, they'd have done socialism correctly. This is obviously not true, as the mere sight of absolute power gets some desperate enough to murder each other. It's why Trotsky got icepicked and so many other revolutionaries got executed. Even if your friend was sure that he'd be the one to do it flawlessly, there are plenty of people under or to the side of him willing to murder him so that they could be in power themselves.

As to my feelings... I feel commies deserve to be lured onto a plane with a sign on it that says "Free Drugs" and to be then dropped off somewhere in the middle of the ocean, high on drugs.

Read The Wilder Shores of Marx. It's the travels of a doctor before the collapse of the Soviet Union to 5 different communist countries. He's a wonderful writer and he details just how on the rails all this was is amazing. His chapter on North Korea where he slips in amongst a bunch of young communist eager to see utopia was amazing. He details how this department store is nothing more than a Potemkin village, fake shoppers, no one buying anything, people walking in and out in circles yet these communists are too enthralled by what they see to see beneath. Those Canadians are too amazed by the scenery to realise people are selling their daughters for sex in that country. It's a short book and a PDF is probably easy to find, id suggest OP read it as well.

Also his remarks regarding cubas literacy were quite humorous. As we hear always about cubas healthcare we also hear about their amazing literacy rates. Yet a quick tour of their libraries shows nothing to read except some revolutionaries diaries and poetry. Imaging being literate but having nothing but the works of Castro volumes 1-10 to read forever. Funny and sad

Really rotates my almonds

>not gorillion billions,

Strawman alert. Solzhenitsyn estimated 15 million prisoners tops over the Gulag's entire existence, which you'd know if you'd actually read his fucking book instead of shitting all over it just because you're sad you were born too late to be a Soviet serf.

>Oh I see, real capitalism has never been tried.

An all-powerful State is incompatible with "capitalism" no matter whose interests it serves, period. The problem is always the amount of power that politicians have, because without that how can a corporation possibly fuck you over?

And in those twelve years I wonder how happy the people living there were. Oh yeah that's right. They were having a 12 year party.

If he thinks he's any better just ask him how he would enforce the distribution of wealth WITHOUT him being in power. He'll probably say mobs but thats up to you to refute. The conversation is moot anyway because the great "exploitation of labor" is almost dead now, if you aren't an engineer you can't "own the means of production", and then you need to higher an engineer to upkeep the machine, and owning it means nothing at that point. Any engineer worth his salt would tell you he doesn't want to actually own the thing he created, and would probably just want to keep on creating more. The ideology is fucked beyond recognition, and in the Service Based economy we have now, it is beyond retarded.

IT hasn't, this crony version you see before you has somehow still ended with you communicating over the Internet with a person on the other side of the world. Shit ain't perfect but every alternative is horrific

Well it seems flawed capitalism leads to burning fields and flawed communism leads to millions of people dying so I have a general idea of which one I'd rather try.

Don't debate when you yourself have so much more to learn. Google the authors frenchy mentioned. Order some books. It takes time

>Nazism
>evil
for you, polish jew

This
Every ((((revolution))) is glorified
They theadhed us how cool the French revolution was against le ebil monarchy, whereas the (revultionary) terror that no monarchy came ever close too was just briefly passed by with the evaluation alas "freedumbz has a price , duh"

They tought us how the Russian revolution was all le oppressed masses rebelling against the ebil monarchy (again) , omitting the fact it was a literal terror people of a certain (((people))) , that blew up government buildings, killed state officials and massacred "collaborates" , that resulted in the deaths of 20million Christian white Russia in the name of Atheism ,led by exclusively by a certain (((people)))

It was never propagated communism is good, but implied that every instance of destruction of the established values, culture and "wrong thinking" people is good when it's in the name struggle of freedumbz n rights n shit , which is what the radical libshit left is claiming to do

Well that was definitely my motivation for making this thread and reading The Gulag Archipelago, to delve into a deeper understanding of what the fuck I believe for some reason so I can properly defend or condemn it.

I'm already in the process of collating works based on his recommendations though it's a lot of ground to cover so I imagine you're right, it does take time.

Took me 3 months the read and it shook me like an earthquake. Tanks running over children, soldiers bayonetting old women to death, prisoners forced to work in the forests at night, many freezing to death, female guards tormenting men by stomping on their testicles. Article 58 of the Soviet penal code essentially gave the authorities the freedom to arrest whoever they wanted. And holy fuck did they. Solzhenitsyn's relentlessly bitter-satirical tone throughout the work makes it even more moving.
WHY NO MOVIES ON THIS!!!????

The basic point to remember is that you can't have centralized economic control without centralized political control, and when there's centralized political control there will inevitably be a vast apparatus of surveillance, enforcement and punishment to make sure that every citizen sticks to the economic plan. That is why Communism always ends up with secret police, gulags, famines, no freedom of speech or movement, etc. It's trying to turn people into mere units of production and this is impossible without great brutality.

The core concept of comunism is "class struggle" (in German "Klassenkampf", properly translated actually "fight between classes"). It means arbitrarily and artificially dividing society into two "classes" (e.g. "workers vs bourgeoise", "antifascists vs fascists", "minorities vs whites", "oppressed genders vs cis hetero males") and spreading the illusion that these classes have to be archenemies, and that the only way to achieve "justice" would be for one class to completely eliminate the other one through means of a violent "revolution". This is flawed in at least three ways:

1. This classification is an unnatural and anti-intellectual oversimplification. It denies the smooth nature of a spectrum of all kinds of people, positions, opinions. It denies the huge diversity and complexity of society, instead replacing it with an "us vs them" mentality and an atmosphere of mistrust and contempt.

2. It is essentially a revival of tribalist/racist modes of thinking, taken to an extreme. In marxist ideology a human being is fully reduced to its "class". All individuality is to be ignored. You are told to hate and not to cooperate with "class enemies". The decision on whether a person will be attacked is solely based on his class affiliation and is not mitigated by knowledge of his personal traits, achievements or anything else unrelated to class. Marxism thus is a dehumanizing ideology.

3. Marxism actively makes compromise or peaceful agreement impossible. It preaches polarization, hatred and intolerance. The normal method of dealing with perceived injustice would be to bargain and to ask for understanding in order to achieve change through peaceful negotiations. Marxism excludes this route and condemns it. According to Marx and his followers the only acceptable path is the one of killing the other class in a "revolution".

i think, you can different hystorical romance and hystorical sciense article.
Soljenitsin published his "memories" in 1950-1960.
Chrooschev lead company to total destalinisation. Soljenitsin aggrovate horrors of
repressive system.
I can't send all sources, because system recognise as spam.
1)lurkmore.to/%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80_%D0%A1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D1%8B%D0%BD

Go read the wilder shores of Marx. A simple easy light read that doesn't hit you with philosophical reading, it's just the observations of a brilliant writer as he travels from Romania/Cuba/Vietnam/Albania/North Korea. The stuff he recounts will stay with you and as you learn more and more about these ideologies and their means of control the things he saw will come to make more sense than the simple oddities and sometimes horrors you saw them as before

>The Gulag Archipelago
>Historical fiction
thats cute. next time you gonna came back with
>Hey polyaks i just read book about king arthur he was our guy etq.

Yes, I already added it to my list.

Do you have anything a bit more... entry-level? I feel like a lot of the concepts in such reading would be hard to grasp without some basic understanding of what principles are being discussed.

I'm not sure capitalism is something that you "try". Capitalism came to us from observing ourselves, and was not thought up by some mastermind.

So now that we understand that every system leads to corruption by sociopaths, why is a system that focuses on a single measure of success (money) and is set up to benefit people with the sociopathic mindset, better than a system that allows for multiple measures of success (culture, art, spirituality, intellectual pursuits, crafts, humanitarianism, etc) and is set up to benefit a regular, decent person?

What is the endgame of capitalism if not China's Sesame system?

>>Well it seems flawed capitalism leads to burning fields and flawed communism leads to millions of people dying
How many people in the colonized capitalist countries that imperialist capitalist countries have outsourced their underclass to, so they don't have to look at them in their own countries, die from capitalism? Every 5 years, the death toll is equal to the greatest estimate of the entire historical death toll of communism. Look it up.

>this crony version you see before you has somehow still ended with you communicating over the Internet with a person on the other side of the world
Funny how my country's computer industry suddenly vanished with glorious capitalism.

>That is why Communism always ends up with secret police, gulags, famines, no freedom of speech or movement, etc. It's trying to turn people into mere units of production
Meanwhile, capitalism brainwashes them to accept this as good.

The Stalinist suckups are starting to crawl out of the woodwork, as they do on every Solzhenitsyn thread.

>Every 5 years, the death toll is equal to the greatest estimate of the entire historical death toll of communism. Look it up.
Well, I'd be more convinced if you presented me with the facts, you clearly know where to find them and I don't so you could go ahead and show me?

The Road to Serfdom by Hayek is a classic and perfectly readable.

Another one
badnameofrussia.ru/Solzhenicyn-Aleksandr1.php
Sorry, but you need use translator.

>r. The conquest of colonialism and imperialism is almost always directly related to the expansion of profit.

yfw the word salad is real.

>profit is evil

>all human expansion is evil

>making a better life for yourself and your family? evil

>attributing all effects of human expansion to the "evils" of capitalism

Americans giving indigenous natives smallpox is a far cry from shooting people in the head because they didn't agree with a communist regime.

For every corporate expansion with "millions of preventable deaths" people work for that corporation which probably improved and created millions of lives. Capitalism drives technology like nothing else can. People want to innovate to get ahead, not to get a shiny participation trophy from a communist government.

Technology has cured more ills in society than any ideology and it is the child of capitalism, not communism.

Go back to your starbucks in Portland so you can get after your unshaven antifa open relationship crotch that hasn't showered in weeks with all your cuckbuddies. Pic related.

i bet you are some ukranian spawn.
came back home so i could gass you like grandpa Stalin used to.

I'm going to start with this one right now, thank you very much my French cousin. Actually you've made quite a compelling point in reminding me of the flaws of the argument re: Stalin being representative of the faults of communism. I never would've even considered that, or at least coming to that conclusion would've taken me a very long time. I think you set me on a very positive course.

Do that before reading The constitution of Liberty, that one is a tad heavier and will work better once you have read more in general.

Basic Economics by Sowell is a very nice book to understand the simple basics of how the stuff works. Speaks in a nice voice and there's not a single graph or chart in the book. A simple understanding of economics would go a long way into understand just why this stuff doesn't work.

Soljenitsin = Green Elepant
> Like Soljenitsin
> Call others BYDLO
> Send other to oven
> Has no contraversion
Hi, poekhavshij, is it youi?

Will do. I was beginning to hit a road block considering how this argument with my friend would play out, and I was constantly berated with the notion that I just can't articulate an argument because I don't know shit. I think knowing what the fuck I'm talking about would, in a lot of ways, dissuade me from even wanting to argue. If I am confident in my understanding I don't really feel the need to try and correct someone else who I think is lacking in their own.

rofl can u make me vatrushka? thax

>So now that we understand that every system leads to corruption by sociopaths, why is a system that focuses on a single measure of success (money)

If you're describing capitalism, most people work to make money, but only a subset of those people believe that the money defines their success -- the rest of us just want to earn enough to spend our free time pursuing our interests, which would not be possible in a State like the USSR where even the leisure time of the people is viewed as a public resource (e.g. forcing people to go to rallies and ideological meetings).

>and is set up to benefit people with the sociopathic mindset,

I think you're describing the Gulags there better than anything else.

>better than a system that allows for multiple measures of success (culture, art, spirituality, intellectual pursuits, crafts, humanitarianism, etc)

Communism never promoted these things for themselves, only for propaganda purposes ("look, comrades, our chess players beat the decadent Americans!") You can't have real culture in conjunction with near-universal censorship, for example.

>capitalism brainwashes them to accept this as good.

No, in a society like Canada (for example) you have a choice to devote your life to making money and buying pointless shit if you want, but people will think you're a bit of a dickhead if you have no other interests in life. My own existence is quite relaxed and cultured, and that is entirely due to the fact that with relatively little effort I can follow my own path in life without having to be micro-managed by a left-wing totalitarian dictatorship.

>mfw the useful idiots are coming out of the woodwork to autistic screech
Oh boi living in fear of lefty/pol/ you guys, can't cope.
I'm sure the glorious revolution will go right this time for sure.

>Stalin was socialism done wrong. China under Mao was socialism done wrong.

1. Tell him he's retarded.

2. Tell him that you can't just simply apply an ideology perfectly. Life is not a fairy tale world where everything goes as planned. Each country has a different history, people, economics and power dynamics. These things vary wildly.

What your friend is advocating is that socialism is a "one size fits all" ideology that you just have to follow step by step and that it will just work.

Far from truth, this same romantic mentality is what leads these people to do terrible mistakes. The fact is that socialism HAS BEEN APPLIED over and over and over again.

Why? Because if it has never been applied, then neither has "capitalism" in "capitalist countries". That's not how it works. Ideologies are not applied completely but partially because as I said, life conditions just does not allow us to do everything as planned. The devil is in the details.

What we can be sure of is that socialism was indeed tried. And that "socialist countries" are those that applied socialist policies such as seizing the means of production, wealth redistribution, price controls, and all that crap. And they failed miserably. Over and over again.

If he can't get this shit around his head, just give up on it.

why rondon playing so shit lately?