this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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It's very frustrating to me to see people say things like "socialism/communism always ends in a dictatorship" while ignoring that capitalism tends towards oligarchies and monopolies. I'm glad to see someone else pointing out that "capitalism only works on a small scale."
Yeah, and it's failing miserably
My comment was a mirror of another user which got removed. And so it doesn't make sense now. Thanks to the great modding team here. He didn't say anything harmful, why censor it??????????
Wrong. Half of europe relied so much on american protection that they had barely any military spending. Germany at the forefront, we only have ammunition for like 2 days of combat. So ye, that's nonsense.
The US has been democratic for a major part of their existence. There were up and downs, sure, but it was largely a democratic system. So have many other big capitalistic countries by the way.
Russia, while being capitalist, is an authoritarian system - I'm pretty sure that would've also happened if they were communist. But the oil money they got from the west probably tasted too good.
Uuuuh, did you use AI to write this? Because it makes no sense. Personally, I wouldn't mind some regulations. Not sure what your point is here.
America had a mostly centrally planned economy during WWII, you couldn't even get more rations without giving your previous packaging back to be recycled.
this is part of why america became so wealthy, along with imperialism.
I mirrored your comment, because I think it works backwards. From the way it sounds to me, you started with your conclusion/opinion and searched for proof of why it is right. Real socialism and the Soviet unions were deeply, deeply flawed systems from the start, but only because some implementations failed, due to essentially the same problems as capitalism, does not mean the idea as a whole is rubbish. If you read the communist manifesto and "the capital" from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, you will read a brilliant critique of our modern contemporary system. There are some very fine ideas in there, and I think it's dangerous to discard another perspective because some implementations have failed. The USA are the living proof of how two radically different systems can suffer from the same problems and collapse because of them. Why is it such a culture war against some genuinely very fine points that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have made over a hundred years ago, which are relevant to this day?
Edit: typo. I apologise for forgetting about Friedrich Engels.
This is generally wrong, though. Communist countries have dramatically democratized society, it works better at large scale if we are speaking of Marxian Communism because that's the Marxist reason for Communism to begin with. Competition centralizes, so in the future it must be publicly owned and planned. This is the basis of Scientific Socialism, primitive Communism is not the same as the post-Socialist Communism, which must be large-scale as production increases in complexity.
Pol Pot wasn't even a Communist.
Competitions have winners, and in this case it means the competition goes out of business and dies, leaving you with a near monopoly or outright monopoly.
That power then gets used to
And that's even assuming there's any competition at all, which often isn't the case with certain things like healthcare, internet, electricity, etc.
The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, etc are more democratic than theie previous systems.
Communism still works, just because the Soviet Union isn't here doesn't mean everything is a failure.
Competition forces centralization and monopolies over time due to increasinly complex production practices that raise the barrier to entry. It's unavoidable.
Pol Pot denounced Marxism and focused on an odd agrarian system, and was backed by the CIA.
Read Soviet Democracy, as well as read up on the government structures of the PRC, Vietnam, Laos, etc. They are democratic.
The PRC is more successful today than the USSR was, and is Socialist. Calling countries in the Global South "shitholes" is wildly chauvanist, along with your unsourced claims about them.
You didn't really go against competition causing centralization. Even further than companies, there are joinings of companies under single megacorps that share supply chains and interwork.
Pol Pot did not "follow Communist ideals," though. Moreover, if someone makes a clear deviation from Communism and denounces Marxism, why on Earth include it as a detractor other than clear bad-faith?
Sure, the Cold War was complicated, but the US was never fighting for Communism and neither was Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge never actually read Marx, and mostly declared any Communist sympathies out of aesthetics and geopolitical support than genuine support for Communism, and the US supported them.
You made a lot of claims here. Do you have any sources to provide support?
Soviet Democracy
Here's a well-sourced post on China's democracy, but really, read their constitution and government structure if you want more.
Cuba was under a fascist slaver before Socialism, and now has a democracy.
The PRC is Socialist, and has one of the largest and most rapidly growing economies in the world, I don't think you need a source for this.
As for competition and centralization, where do you think the megacorps came from? We are more centralized now than ever before.
Pol Pot and the CIA, alternatively Blowback lists their sources and they went over it in Season 5.
Tribal societies existed without classes or trade, they largely pooled together resources.
Primitive Communism isn't something to emulate, but a historical formation of society.
Some did, others didn't. Calling primitive communism "primitive communism" is a judgement on its class character, not a moral one.
Independently of who I side with, I am blocking this community because of the stifling of Realitaetsverlust's comments.
edit: was baffled by the stifling and just researched and learned about Lemmy.ml
it all makes sense now. It is a Socialist Communist instance that censors those not aligned with them. Political leanings don't bother me, but the censorship does so I will be avoiding anything Lemmy.ml in the future. They of course have a right to run their instance how they wish. peace out
They can at least still be read in the modlog