The Socialism/Communism Thread

[Wolfslayer]

I think there is a case to be made for a robust social safety net and even an increase in the child tax credit paid monthly like it was during covid, but full fledged Socialism or Communism is not good in my opinion.

Truly insightful.

 

[MendotoManteo]

And that in a nutshell is why it doesn't work. Much of it goes against man's natural instincts. What's mine is mine. Survival of the fittest and all that. Hard to create an entirely new culture.

Yeah, I totally get it.

The most eye-opening experience for me was during the Covid/Floyd "uprising." We saw the possibility of something like socialism here in Portland and Seattle, but that fizzled out very quickly. I saw at the time what the Trump administration was doing, with Kushner as his "Covid czar," so to speak. They were purposely stealing PPE and other things from blue states and cities. Democrats never made a stink about it, even though it was obvious crimes against humanity. But whatever. Democrats are Democrats, afterall. Weak.

I'm ranting, but point is I saw that if it isn't going to happen during something like that in our time (or the Depression during our ancestors' time - granted, FDR basically saved capitalism in this country, as far as I'm concerned), it ain't gonna happen. It would take immeasurable suffering. Russia lost around 30-40 million people between WW1 and WW2. China probably lost nearly the same. When things are that bad, you can understand how a "new culture" can be born. Something, I guess, about eating rats and human flesh to survive.

Regarding "man's natural instincts," you're right. Default is barbarianism, which is why socialism always seems so heavy-handed. Yes, it's hard to create a new culture. And I wonder what it's worth. If things were to get that bad, we've all lost already.

I guess it's what it is. But we should all understand still that there's a better way.

 

[MendotoManteo]

Was Star Trek a "socialist" society?

Not trying to be weird, but I think that's the only way a society like ours could possibly get off this planet.

Any other society would just consume itself. Elon ain't getting us off this planet, other than maybe himself and a few others. And they'll just die in due time without a real support base back here or elsewhere.

Perhaps this post belongs in the alien/UFO thread, but this is why I scoff at films like Independence Day, as fun as they are.

There is certainly intelligent life in the universe. How could there not be? Arrogance is stating otherwise.

As far as I'm concerned, however, only a society resembling something like socialism would be able to reach deep space and make contact.

Aliens, by their nature, would have to be benevolent if they initiated contact. (There's no way our civilization could ever make contact, because, at least as we're currently constituted, we're too stupid and self-interested.) And I know Mars Attacks (great film; no ideo why it never comes on) mocks that assumption, but I think it true. A civilization capable of contact would have to be so far advanced and "above it all" that we probably couldn't even process it. Something like 2001: A Space Odyssey with the trip to Jupiter. Star child. Evolution.

We'll not see anything like that in our own time. But it makes you wonder about the future. I guess someone eventually somewhere will see whether or not it works.

Sorry, forgive me my thoughts. My mind wonders.

 

[superrific]

Just a tangential sidenote: you know why Cuban-Americans are so pro-Republican and conservative, right? It's because most of their granddaddies literally owned slaves before Castro kicked them out. They're not good people, obviously.

Not sure if serious . . .

 

[MendotoManteo]

Not sure if serious . . .

Very serious. If you're asking if I literally think all Cuban-Americans are descended from slave owners, no. I do not think that. But certainly it's had a cultural effect. And, just as feudalism/capitalism/whatever works, it's rubbed off on the rest of the peons.

 

[MendotoManteo]

And I still intend to respond to your earlier post, Super. Just give me time.

Mendo to Manteo.

 

[superrific]

Very serious. If you're asking if I literally think all Cuban-Americans are descended from slave owners, no. I do not think that. But certainly it's had a cultural effect. And, just as feudalism/capitalism/whatever works, it's rubbed off on the rest of the peons.

There are no Cubans living in Miami whose grandfathers were slave owners. Slavery was abolished in the 1880s in Cuba. I suppose it's possible for one of those weird situations where a 25 year old guy owned a slave in 1880, and then he had a son in 1920, who then had a son in 1975 -- but those are extremely rare.

And slavery isn't the reason the Cubans in Florida became Republicans, not exactly anyway. They became Republicans because they saw liberals as supportive of Fidel (which they were in the 60s and 70s). Or at least "Fidel did some good things" supportive, like Bernie Sanders.

 

[finesse]

There are no Cubans living in Miami whose grandfathers were slave owners. Slavery was abolished in the 1880s in Cuba. I suppose it's possible for one of those weird situations where a 25 year old guy owned a slave in 1880, and then he had a son in 1920, who then had a son in 1975 -- but those are extremely rare.

And slavery isn't the reason the Cubans in Florida became Republicans, not exactly anyway. They became Republicans because they saw liberals as supportive of Fidel (which they were in the 60s and 70s). Or at least "Fidel did some good things" supportive, like Bernie Sanders.

The US banned slavery in the 1860s. There are estimates that there are up to 400,000 slaves in the US today. Legal status and actual status aren't the same.

This is anecdotal but I did live in the 50s on and was reasonable well informed, including reading Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson in the mid 60s going forward who were political muckrakers extraodinaire, I don't recall much if any support for Castro after he took over from Batista. The Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis left a serious mark on the public view of Cuba.

 

[AlbionAmerican]

This is a post with perspective. I generally acknowledge what you state in your last paragraph.

However, I do not understand why you say Nazism came from Russia. Not literally, obviously. But in terms of influence with Stalin.

I'm no Stalin apologist. I think he ruined whatever hope the revolution had. And I understand the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. I get all that. But I do not accept the conclusion that Nazism was imported from Russia. Or that WW2 was more a result of the Soviet Union than Nazi Germany. I think you need to explain that in far more detail, if you're going to make such claims.

One of the bi-products of the Russian Revolution were a few million White emigres dispersing all over Europe, with some 500-600k ending up in Germany. There's a great book on this called The Russian Roots of Nazism which goes into the Munich-based Aufbau group starting up in Germany, eventually working with the Nazis. A lot of early participants in Nazi terrorist activity were part of the Aufbau Vereinigung and were born in Eastern Europe originally.

Prior to Hitler, its not like Germany was known as a place where they treated Jews horribly, in fact its the total opposite: this was the country where Jews had thrived for centuries, and Jews were deeply woven into all levels of German society. Germany had its share of anti-Jewish rioting but never had the kinds of pogroms in Eastern Europe, this was a far more civilized place. German Jews were incredibly patriotic, some 100k fought for Germany in WW1. People who fight for their country don't do it if they feel they're not apart of it.

So while the ethnic/volkish ideas of nationalism were strong in Germany, those didn't necessarily justify themselves by being exclusively anti-Jewish. The concept of what it meant to be a German, the German ethnos, or what a German nation would look like were around for 150-200 years prior to the Nazi Party showing up, much of which had its origins with Immanuel Kant and German idealist philosophy. In pursuit of a way to generate ideas for what a German nation would look like, the Jewish question would often come up because Jews were in fact a dissident element naturally within German states. Martin Luther was no fan of Jews, nor was the Catholic Church, so Jews always had some level of skepticism within these areas however German nationalism also emerged as religion was in decline too. German nationalism wasn't a religious movement so it also didn't require itself to be anti-Jewish on religious grounds. Many early philosophers on this topic wrote more delicately about Jews and were more often charitable to the allowance of Jewish life within a German nation, even if they maintained suspicion of Jewish people. That is a lot different from holding this far harsher idea that the Jews were in fact the enemy who needed to be dealt with. This vengeful reactionary element that desired eradicating Jews / Jewry from Germany mostly showed up when the White emigres did. People like Alfred Rosenberg (author of Myth of the 20th Century) as one example was Estonian. The Elders of Zion was in fact, a Russian produced piece of text.

 

[Paine]

Great new podcast out from Jacobin for liberals who are interested in hearing a more leftist/socialist analysis of current American politics. Definitely more academic/analysis oriented if that’s your thing. Hosted by NYU sociology prof. Vivek Chibber and Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara.

Posting here because the first episode is relevant to a lot of the convo we’ve had here.

 

[MendotoManteo]

There are no Cubans living in Miami whose grandfathers were slave owners. Slavery was abolished in the 1880s in Cuba. I suppose it's possible for one of those weird situations where a 25 year old guy owned a slave in 1880, and then he had a son in 1920, who then had a son in 1975 -- but those are extremely rare.

And slavery isn't the reason the Cubans in Florida became Republicans, not exactly anyway. They became Republicans because they saw liberals as supportive of Fidel (which they were in the 60s and 70s). Or at least "Fidel did some good things" supportive, like Bernie Sanders.

You're right.

When I referred to "slavery" it was not necessarily literal. But you're right.

And you're right about the 60s and 70s. Regarding the Democratic Party.

However, I will stand by my point regarding Cubans in Florida. I think that spiritually the former slaveholders and plantation owners certainly played a part in influencing the mindset of many Cuban expatriates.

 

[MendotoManteo]

1. Link to those life expectancy numbers? Here's what I found for the US. It puts US life expectancy at about 60 in 1922. I am therefore exceedingly skeptical of the Russian life expectancy numbers you cite. Keep in mind that 32 is extremely low; I think during the Dark Ages, life expectancy was like 28. I will leave aside the question of whether life expectancy is really a good way to "judge a country."

Russia: life expectancy 1845-2020 | Statista

Life expectancy in Russia was 29.6 in the year 1845, and over the course of the next 175 years, it is expected to have increased to 72.3 years by 2020.

www.statista.com

2. American women did not get the right to vote because of the Bolsheviks. That's a nutso claim. "Glorifying suffragettes" is craziness. We glorify them because they fought for generations for voting rights. It wasn't just handed over because the Bolsheviks did it. Note that women already had the right to vote in about 10 states before WWI. The main impetus for voting rights was the contribution of women during the war era -- not unlike the impetus for lowering the voting age to 18 from 21 (i.e. the contributions of people that age in the military belied any claim that they were too immature to vote).

I get you here. Especially regarding the 10 states.

But that was 10 states.

It may or may not be a popular opinion, but I've never figured MLK achieved much. It was the Black Panthers, X, et al., with all the riots that achieved something. Kind of like Luigi.

Strange timing, if it really was just women marching around.

3. I don't know what to say about "bread lines" except that you are perhaps being overly literal here. I don't know if there were lines for bread per se, but material shortages were common in the Soviet Union. Maybe not for bread.

You're wrong. I don't think that's the case. After WW2 at least, before capitalization throughout the 80s and early 90s.

4. How many countries did the Soviets invade or coup? Let's see. Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, the Baltic nations, etc. etc. There were 8 countries in the Warsaw Pact, so from that alone, for the US to have a 10:1 ratio, we'd have needed to invade or coup half the countries in the world (more than half, actually, since there were substantially fewer countries). Add in the countries like the Baltics, Georgia, the Stans that were absorbed into the USSR; also add Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Korea, where the Soviets provided support for violent coups; and of course their invasion of Afghanistan, and so forth.

In reality, the behavior of the US and the USSR toward the "Third World" was largely similar. A focus on geopolitics regardless of the actual outcomes in those countries. The myth has been that the US stood for freedom and the USSR for oppression; debunking that myth is the recognition that US foreign policy supported plenty of oppressive regimes. But I've never heard any serious argument that the US was in any way worse.

You've got me here. You're not wrong.

5. No, I would not say the World Wars were "capitalist" in any meaningful sense of the word. The conflict that sparked the first WW involved three countries (Austria, Serbia, and Russia -- Serbia being technically a part of Austria-Hungary) that were largely pre-capitalist (especially the latter two). The Second WW was initiated by a fascist regime, and really exploded into a world war when a) a communist country got involved and b) an imperial empire got involved. The starvation of Bengal in the 40s, which gets far too little attention for what it is, so props for bringing it up, was more imperialist than capitalist. Britain wanted more war supplies, and Churchill thought the deaths of millions of Indians was an acceptable cost. Churchill's historical reputation as a great leader has been vastly sanitized.

Imperialism, capitalism, whatever. You're naive if you think the world wars not related to capital. Of course they were, Super. Get real!

6. Communism can't work even in theory. Hayek proved why. I am by no means a Hayek fan generally -- in fact, I think Austrian economics is more joke than academic discipline -- but his argument against central planning is precisely right. Central planning can never work. It's really hard for a large company to execute a strategic five year plan (and usually companies use internal markets for resource allocation); it's impossible to do that for a whole economy.

I don't disagree. Human beings are too stupid for something like communism. Even the communists are too stupid.
But I always go back to Star Trek and 2001: Space Odyssey.

If we're ever going to do something like that, we'd have to be communist/socialist. There's no way any other society could ever get off this planet.

Wishful thinking.

Have a merry Christmas!

 

[Zoo_View]

Russia: life expectancy 1845-2020 | Statista

Life expectancy in Russia was 29.6 in the year 1845, and over the course of the next 175 years, it is expected to have increased to 72.3 years by 2020.

www.statista.com

I get you here. Especially regarding the 10 states.

But that was 10 states.

It may or may not be a popular opinion, but I've never figured MLK achieved much. It was the Black Panthers, X, et al., with all the riots that achieved something. Kind of like Luigi.

Strange timing, if it really was just women marching around.



You're wrong. I don't think that's the case. After WW2 at least, before capitalization throughout the 80s and early 90s.


You've got me here. You're not wrong.


Imperialism, capitalism, whatever. You're naive if you think the world wars not related to capital. Of course they were, Super. Get real!

I don't disagree. Human beings are too stupid for something like communism. Even the communists are too stupid.
But I always go back to Star Trek and 2001: Space Odyssey.

If we're ever going to do something like that, we'd have to be communist/socialist. There's no way any other society could ever get off this planet.

Wishful thinking.

Have a merry Christmas!

Why would any group of people of modest/normal means want to fund an effort to “leave” this planet?

This planet and sun have at least a billion years to go.

 

[MendotoManteo]

Why would any group of people of modest/normal means want to fund an effort to “leave” this planet?

This planet and sun have at least a billion years to go.

I generally respect your opinion, but are you serious? We just re-elected a complete and utter moron who previously attempted a coup to be our president again. Climate change. And all that.

Things will get wild and wooly. A billion years? Yeah, sure, in a perfect universe.

We're not all ZZLP posters. Most people are dumb as shit. Humanity ain't gonna last another billion years. At least not on this planet.

 

[CRHeel94]

I actually think this an interesting topic to discuss. Socialism/communism (two distinct topics) is such a third rail, knee jerk label in US politics that it doesn't get the thoughtful consideration and discussion that it warrants. I'm not well versed in all of the Marxian principles: IIRC he had more industrialized nations in mind.

Personal history tends to shape perspective. I have seen communism up pretty close (Nicaragua in the 80s), but my much more extensive experience is with the sort of socialism we have in Costa Rica (very similar to the socialism found in Europe). I've long held that the US could do well with a bit more of European type socialism (and that Europe needs a dose of American style capitalism).

I am an unabashed capitalist. I'm a big believer in the power of the free market, but I recognize that a market unchecked can easily turn abusive. I also think that you need some sort of basic security net (health and education come to mind) for your lower classes.

 

[UNCatTech]

I generally respect your opinion, but are you serious? We just re-elected a complete and utter moron who previously attempted a coup to be our president again. Climate change. And all that.

Things will get wild and wooly. A billion years? Yeah, sure, in a perfect universe.

We're not all ZZLP posters. Most people are dumb as shit. Humanity ain't gonna last another billion years. At least not on this planet.

Our current humanity, correct. But maybe after we totally fuck everything up and die off, the planet will reset and evolution will produce the next human experiment.

 

[Zoo_View]

I generally respect your opinion, but are you serious? We just re-elected a complete and utter moron who previously attempted a coup to be our president again. Climate change. And all that.

Things will get wild and wooly. A billion years? Yeah, sure, in a perfect universe.

We're not all ZZLP posters. Most people are dumb as shit. Humanity ain't gonna last another billion years. At least not on this planet.

We are incapable of funding a movement to another habitable planet. Making Mars habitable is a farcical idea.

Mankind’s only hope for survival is on this little planet.

 

[CRHeel94]

Want to follow up with a couple of thoughts.
In 1990 I went back to my native Nicaragua after being away fro 11 years. It was a unique experience to see a country coming out of a "communist" system.

Nicaragua didn't go full bore communism like the USSR or China, but it was very close to what you found in Cuba with a few more provisions for personal property. They did try to centralize all facets of the economy with central planning (price controls, production controls, rationing, currency controls, nationalizing assets and means of production, etc). It was a terrible disaster: Nicaragua saw a major economic regression during the 80s. Some critics will point to the civil war (definitely had an impact, the greatest one being the enormous brain drain that it created) and the US embargo (a lighter version of the Cuban embargo) as reasons for the economic collapse. But when you talk to common folk it was evident that the economic policies of central planning just don't work. In many cases small farmers (they were still allowed) could not bring their produce to market...the price just wouldn't cover the cost of production so they would either barter or grow subsistence crops which sparks a cycle of shortages. Workers found that they would get the same amount of rations regardless of the work they put in; you start getting by with minimum effort needed to accomplish things.

I remember walking into a supermarket in June 1990 about three months after the fall of Ortega. There were basically three items in the entire supermarket: one aisle must have had about twenty very basic brooms. Another aisle had balls of basic soap. And in the refrigerated section there were four bags of milk. The rest of the supermarket was barren (they were still moving from price controls to open pricing). In the streets of Managua, vendors would hawk all sorts of items imported from neighboring Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica; guys were selling 2 liters of Cocca-Cola like it was hot potatoes (the Coke plant was still closed at the time....it had to shutdown because the union ran the assembly lines into the ground).

Aside form the central planning, the other fallacy of the communist system is that everyone will be the same. Time after time, we have seen that those in power have special privileges that run counter to the notion of class equality. The ruling elite of the Sandinista government did all right for themselves. Their top officials moved into confiscated mansions. They had their own commissary (could only purchase in dollars) that had every food item you could imagine. All they did was supplant one ruling class with another.

 

[Paine]

I actually think this an interesting topic to discuss. Socialism/communism (two distinct topics) is such a third rail, knee jerk label in US politics that it doesn't get the thoughtful consideration and discussion that it warrants. I'm not well versed in all of the Marxian principles: IIRC he had more industrialized nations in mind.

Personal history tends to shape perspective. I have seen communism up pretty close (Nicaragua in the 80s), but my much more extensive experience is with the sort of socialism we have in Costa Rica (very similar to the socialism found in Europe). I've long held that the US could do well with a bit more of European type socialism (and that Europe needs a dose of American style capitalism).

I am an unabashed capitalist. I'm a big believer in the power of the free market, but I recognize that a market unchecked can easily turn abusive. I also think that you need some sort of basic security net (health and education come to mind) for your lower classes.

You say you’re an “unabashed capitalist,” but what does that mean? Just that you believe in the power of markets? If so, that doesn’t make you a capitalist alone.

Likewise, being a communist or socialist doesn’t necessitate belief in a command economy just because past countries operated under these auspices. There is a great tradition of market socialism, and most socialists in the 21st century recognize the efficiency of markets when well-regulated and competitive.

 

[chrissteel]

Things that should be noted. At then end of world war II the US had the world strongest army and nukes and control of most of Europe and Asia and what did we do. We left. Russia didn't. We left Japan, We left Europe and rebuilt western Europe with the Marshall plan. We fought to save South Korea and then left. Then the first Gulf war we again had the world strongest army occupying the mother load of oil in Saudia Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait. And we left. Russia never leaves they have to be run out. Socialism only seems to work in theory.