This isn’t really a meme
How’s about a website that generates money, like Facebook or YouTube? Can you own that?
What about products that designed to create ongoing streams of revenue, like a patent on an invention or a piece of art you can collect royalties from every time it is displayed? The USSR famously took ownership of Tetris away from its creator.
Under communism, how does the stock market work? I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s pretty hard to imagine getting rid of it now that the global economy is pretty much dependent on it.
Today, five countries exist that can be said to be communist: China, Russia, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. Of those five, none have achieved actual communism, and several have inarguably embraced capitalism to a great extent. All of them have essentially authoritarian governments. Which is unsurprising, since a dictatorship of the proletariat is central to the Marxist vision of how to create a communist society, and involves the creation of a single-party transitional government that forcibly suppresses all its critics and rivals.
I’m not big into capitalism and I think we should implement plenty of socialist reforms, but I will never understand why some people on the Left—or anyone for that matter—think communism is what we should be striving for.
“Today, five countries exist that can be said to be communist: China, Russia”
Tell me you have no idea what you are talking about without directly telling me you have no idea what you are talking about. In what way can today’s Russia “be said to be communist”, and how does its current, very explicitly anti-communist government, contribute to the point you are making?
You can replace Russia with North Korea if it suits you, I forgot to include that one. Yes, the USSR was communist, while modern day Russia much less so. Doesn’t change my point and doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.
I once read somewhere that presently no country in the world runs government in the form of 100% true communism including China and Russia. They are just some sort of mixed communism and other types.
The USSR famously took ownership of Tetris away from its creator.
He developed the game on company time. If he’d lived in a capitalist country, the government wouldn’t have taken control of Tetris, but the company would have. Every software company contract I’ve ever heard of has a clause that says the company owns any code you produce while working there.
Yes, but you choose to work for a company. Don’t pretend that’s the same as the government of the country you happen to be born in taking ownership of your creations. In a capitalist country, had Alexey Pajitnov chosen to develop the game himself, he would have made much more from it. If he had done that in the USSR, he’d still have his creation and all its monetary proceeds taken away from him.
I’ve worked at a handful of companies and am currently employed at one that do not do this.
Those websites are highly capitalistic and never brought any innovation, all technologies related to the internet were researched by public money.
Look into patent trolls. Patents are bad, publicly funded research is always better, but it doesn’t prevent people from spending money to do research, but it doesn’t entitle them for the profits.
I’m not advocating FOR communism, I’m just trying to dispel myths.
Socialism is soluble with capitalism.
Never brought any innovation? VP9, AV1, zstd, GraphQL, React, and many more were made/contributed to by Google/Facebook specifically to improve those services. We benefit from this as they release these programs/formats.
Programs and format are not research. Nothing new was invented, they’re just alternative to existing things.
This. Someone who knows how to use their brain.
There is no Paradise. There is no solution. Reality will always be messy and every solution will always end up creating its own problems. True for capitalism, socialism, or any other social order.
Which is not to say we should not always attempt to improve the world.
No you can’t own a platform like youtube or facebook, but you could make content on it, intellectul propriety is not a thing as you don’t have to produce art just to get a monetary return, but just because you enjoy doing so, there’s no need of a stock market in an ideal communist world because everyone gets what they need based on what they can provide, but if it’s just a country i guess it’s the government who takes care of it.
Regarding those 5 countries i’m not sure of every one of them, but talking about China as you said it’s not a communist country but it is not a dictatorship of the proletarian either, as it’s not the proletarian class nor their democratically elected representatives who govern the country.
In the end i’ll add that greed is not more “human nature” that wishing to kill someone annoying.
We didn’t own Reddit’s platform, but we made content and engagement for that community anyway.
That worked out awesome. Let’s scale it up to an entire society.
Give me an example of a communist country that has not resulted in the creation of an authoritarian government.
Capitalism is an authoritarian, both liberal and conservative wants capitalism, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. You don’t have choices.
think communism is what we should be striving for.
Simple - it’s the ideal. Will we ever get there? Possibly not. Is it even desirable? Debatable. But it’s always better to know where to go and not know how to get there than having the option of going anywhere and not knowing where to go.
Simple - it’s the ideal.
Not in my view. I don’t want the State owning all sources of wealth and material goods. The problem with capitalism is that too much of that stuff gets funneled into too few hands. Communism is the same problem, just different people. No thanks.
I don’t want the State
Sounds like your problem is with something else because, by definition, communism is stateless
I don’t want the State
Sounds like your problem is with something else because, by definition, communism is stateless
No cars though. Fuck cars.
Y’all should move to Cuba
Food is rationned, meaning everybody has food, and healthcare is great.
Yes, yes plenty of food and healthcare is so professional, it’s like paradise on earth.
So basically nothing will change in it for you! Don’t worry, you lose nothing.
(but your chains)
And your fucking tooth brush /s
There’s no need for tooth brushes cause we all share the same tooth
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How do new means of production come to be? Like, if a community really wanted a unicycle repair shop, how would that get started? How would it be decided that we use resources for that shop instead of, say, a pogo stick repair shop? Would that be up to a local government (or some other governing body)? Honest question.
My country used to have communism. Niche shops like this barely ever started as small businesses and instead usually started out as specialized departments of large all-encompassing state corporations. Instead of there being a company that specialized in making furniture, the furniture would be made by the logging company. The company that ran a chemical plant would directly sell shampoos, paints, toothpaste, fertillizer, etc. It cut out middle men but the products were usually crap quality because it couldn’t focus on each product individually. This stifled progress. My dad wanted to learn programming (this was the late 80s) but because the government was too oldschool to open a computer science degree programme, the only way to get near a computer was to go to a university that specialized in mining and take a programme in mining machine automation.
Bad management is not the the specialty of communism. In fact, this is a governance problem: is it lead by an idiot and how can people change the lead to solve this problem. Capitalism has this problem currently with governments and companies directions totally unable to do anything about climate change and wealth inequalities.
People always mistaken dictature or oligarchy with communism unfortunately.
Like, if a community really wanted a unicycle repair shop, how would that get started?
Pretty much the same way a community would start a co-op right now.
Would that be up to a local government (or some other governing body)?
Public participation, of course. The community would form councils, where people would collectively decide whether this is a good idea or not. That literally what the word soviet means - councils of people making decisions (which is why the Bolsheviks hijacked them and turned the word into a cruel joke).
Well if the state provides funds based on need, we don’t need unicycles or pogo sticks at all so we just wouldn’t have them.
The state is not qualified to decide whether someone needs a pogo stick - neither are billionaire parasites.
Communism meant that there were equal people and some more equal than others. If you have convinced the right people they got funds to do things. But it is highly burocratic and slow unless instructions come from above. Communism also meant that everyone capable of working must work so they made up many-many bullshit jobs where people just spend time.
Ahhh you just talking with extremists from another pov, dw.
Don’t get why you’re downvoted. Probably all the people who’ve never actually lived in communist states.
Communism meant that there were equal people and some more equal than others
No, it doesn’t. If that’s what you think, it means Animal Farm went straight over your head.
Can you have your own garden for food?
Yes. What this is saying is large industries that are meant to feed people or provide commodities cannot belong to just one person. We are seeing the effects of monopolization right now in our time.
I thought owning the means of production was the point, but requiring a consistent argument from a communist is like requiring a consistent argument from a communist.
An individual can’t own the means of production, it’s supposed to be “owned” by the people. I’m not a communist, but that argument never changed.
cries in Deleuze
One wouldn’t be allowed to build a factory and then own it? No wonder communists are nazi-tier.
Oh you sweet summer western child, you actually think that this kind of dystopian communist society can actually exist 😂😂😂
A good system to level off achievement and remove all the incentives to be productive.
Good. Productivity killed the planet.
There’s a reason capitalism always wins.
I did not realize we had a timelord in our presence. Thank you for informing us that for the remaining amount of human history life is equally as oppressive
Where are all the dead people? Do you also have there step by step quide on how to achieve this utopia? Also, you do not own anything. Also, fuck off with tankie shit.
You just described healthcare system in soviet union. Instead of money vodka was used, as money was worthless, and there were no foods in grocery stores. Doctors were drunk and barley came to work. Communism just makes everything even more worse than it already is. There so many horror stories you don’t hear.
it was totalitarian, nobody wants a totalitarian state. communism and totalitarianism are different things
why don’t you quote the homeless people in the US and the drug problems of philadelphia, the capitalism of south africa, and saudi arabia?
we disagree, it’s okay.
Still communist tho
