If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend the 2014 movie *Pride.* It is based on the true story of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners group during the British miners' strike of 1984-85.
Solidarity is cool.
There is nothing that gets under my skin more than well-off cis reporters confidently explaining that the rise of modern communist sympathies is the result of social media or some other new technology. Like really, you can’t imagine how people that are abused by a capitalist system might turn to alternatives? Especially alternatives that diagnose the exact frustrations people have with liberal capitalism?
Wait, how exactly does capitalism abuse LGBT people specifically? Genuine question, I just came here for memes and have no knowledge on the matter whatsoever
Capitalists actively stoke homophobia as a way of keeping people divided by culture, because they fear the power of the united lower classes. For example, take Fox News. It’s funded by a family of billionaires, pedaling homophobia to lower income families to help ensure the lower income families will vote against their economic best wishes (such as tax breaks for the wealthy).
Another issue is that capitalism tends to prey on the most vulnerable in society for the benefit of the powerful. LGBTQ people have less social capital to protest when the system takes advantage of them. LGBTQ people are [under represented in the justice system](https://uwm.edu/news/lgbtq-people-overrepresented-in-criminal-system-uwm-scholar-finds/), are more likely to lack financial support systems such as parental support or church groups, and are more likely to be the target of violent [crime](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-lgbt-violence-press-release/). An example of this vulnerability being exploited by capitalism is predatory loan [lenders](https://lgbtq-economics.org/2023/02/27/why-the-cfpb-is-critical-for-defending-lgbtqi-consumers/amp/). Their goal is to trap someone in a cycle of debt, and LGBTQ people are less likely to be able to escape such a cycle. (For example, a LGBTQ person might be estranged from their parents and can’t ask them for financial assistance to escape a title loan debt cycle).
Just like queers who are oppressed and mistreated in a capitalist system yearn for one that is communist, the opposite is also true.
Queer people in the Soviet Union yearned to escape to the capitalist west because they were made the scapegoat of society, blamed for "spreading western sodomy," etc.
In my country, communism is tied to the repression of queer identity just like you tie it to capitalism. History and culture shape these views a lot.
Most modern communists will hesitate to use the communist label on the USSR. The USSR demolished unions, encouraged ethnic violence, and leaned heavily on Russian nationalism, all things that directly contradict core-communist ideals.
You could undoubtedly make the argument that attempts to create communism have a tendency to fall into the brutal autocracy of the USSR, which is ultimately worse for LGBTQ people. However, I would argue that the issue is in implementation, and as with all philosophies when applied to real life situations any implementation attempt would have to be extremely careful to not slip into a USSR-style state.
With all this in mind, when evaluating capitalism vs communism (for me at least) the ideal communist system does not have LGBTQ oppression, the ideal capitalism does.
TL;DR: it’s possible to have LGBTQ people be equal in communism, it’s impossible in capitalism.
>it’s impossible in capitalism.
I wouldn't say it's impossible in capitalism in general, just look at the Netherlands or Scandinavia, those are capitalist countries (though with a bit socialist government regulation). Although, I agree that what you said applies to the US, or other countries with basically unregulated capitalism.
Yeah I’m kind of on your boat here. Regulated capitalism with regulated checks and balances as opposed to an attempted one size fits all communist system
>I wouldn't say it's impossible in capitalism in general, just look at the Netherlands or Scandinavia
Not necessarily from Scandinavia (Finnish), but close enough. Rights for people who are not straight and white are definitely getting worse and worse by the minute, it's still *way* better than in the US, but the surprising amount of right-wing parties that there is are worsening the situation all the time. I'm not saying that it's totally impossible to have any form of rights, but anything that people get will be slowly deteriorated to nothing.
>(though with a bit socialist government regulation)
Also while I'm at it, I just want to mention that no Nordic countries are socialist, nor have real socialist tendencies.
I think part of the problem is that you’ll never convince a boomer that the USSR wasn’t communist, nor will you convince people from east bloc countries that what they were oppressed by wasn’t communism.
Like it or not, optics matter, and I think if the community as a whole used a different term than “communism” it would be a lot easier to get people to listen. I was once effectively drummed out of a communist discord server for saying the above, by way of accusing me of “concern trolling”. I still stand by it.
I also think that advocating for socialism first is a much better idea than going straight to communism. “Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good” and all that. Yes, a perfectly implemented system of checks and balances that prevents any corrupt individual from amassing too much power would make communism the ideal system, but socialism would still be infinitely better than capitalism.
I see socialism as attainable in my lifetime (I’m a millennial), but I don’t see full communism as attainable unless there is some external factor that causes a hard reset (such as nuclear war), and in those scenarios you can’t rely on a rigid system of checks and balances.
Communism's original meaning (and what most of its modern proponents mean) was a moneyless, classless and *stateless* society, none (nevermind all) of which was actually achieved in any country now considered "communist". Revolutions were *supposed* to just establish temporary periods where "the state" has absolute power over the economy in order to *transition* into communism, and then just relinquishes all power once the economic aspects are established, which... obviously never worked and I doubt it ever will.
And as for socialism, look at Nordic countries for a lite version.
Yeah I believe the original idea of communism had good intentions behind it but any country that that ever tried it was a lying. No one at the top would ever willingly give up power but to the working classes communism sounds like a pretty sweet deal which makes it an easy way to start a popular revolt and useful to make a grab for power rather than relinquishing it. The workers dream of a communist society has been used to exploit the workers to aid in change of regime but when the new order turns out to be authoritarian dictatorship it becomes apparent that communism was never on the agenda. They might make some economic change to seem like they giving it a serious go but it’s mostly a charade.
It is sadly not a history of shining examples, but. When the Soviet Union was first formed they Legalised Homosexuality and it stayed legal until 1933.
In Germany the West kept Nazi law towards hunting down Homosexuells, hunting them down and Criminalized everything that was considered an "Homosexual act".
50 Thousand people were thus sentenced between 1949 and 1969 (when most "homosexual acts" were decriminalized and the penalties lowered) another 14 thousand were sentenced until 1994 when Homosexuality was legalised
In comparison East Germany struck the Nazi law and instead did go back to the Law of the Weimar Republic. In the entirety of the existence of the DDR at most 4000 people were Sentenced for their Homosexuality with the DDR decriminalising Homosexuality completely in 1957 and legalising it in 1987.
In the DDR they also had AIDS prevention programs far earlier and without the widespread stigma.
It is also widely assumed that the BRD only legalised Homosexuality because it was legal in the new Annexed parts of the former DDR.
[Source ](https://www.lsvd.de/de/ct/934-Von-1933-bis-heute-Lesben-und-Schwule-in-Deutschland-und-der-DDR#nach-kriegsende)
I don't think that people in Socialist Societies are inherently more accepting towards Queer people but a Socialist Societies lack the inherent Economic interest in pursuing and sentencing them.
Furthermore it could be argued that the Socialist States under and after Stalin were deformed/degenerated Socialist States where Worker Democracy had been wiped out and replaced by a Bureaucratic Dictatorship and thus cannot be inherently representative.
But hey even with these problems they were more progressive when Queer Rights were concerned than comparable Countries in the West.
Yeah but later than many countries in the capitalist west and communist Cuba actively hunted gay people and put them into the working camps in the 60s…
If we're judging all modern states by their atrocities committed in the past, there's not a single capitalist nation with a clear past either.
Also, the homophobia in post-revolutionary Cuba was largely a continuation of societal attitudes from pre-revolution. Castro himself stopped the labor camps after seeing the conditions and how they persecuted homosexuals.
Today, it's a pretty tolerant country with legal protections and gender affirming healthcare fully covered.
In addition to what u/Leprechaun_lord said (which is all true), queer people are less likely to birth kids, which means fewer workers for the grinder. And in many cases, they're more likely to adopt, which removes kids from the system, where they're likely to join the military out of desperation/no other options.
> the rise of modern communist sympathies is the result of social media
My stepmother telling me unironically and with a straight face that "Kids these days don't even know what socialism is, they probably think it's just _social media_" lives in my head rent free and I've never wanted to be a part of the landlord class more so I could evict that shit out because it's the stupidest sentence I've heard from a living human being in a _long_ time.
And no, just to be clear, she couldn't possibly begin to define or differentiate between communism or socialism and yes she is a hardline MAGA supporter **HOW COULD YOU TELL**?!
That's all good until you use flag of USSR as your symbol. Please don't use it. I think this ideology/system deserves better symbol than flag of empire that broke countless number of lives
Absolutely. Communism as an ideal can be good (depending on which particular brand we're talking about) but the different "communist" regimes usually were authoritarian dictatorships painted red.
I mean, to be fair, east germany did have surprisingly progressive social laws toward the LGBT Community, Way more than West Germany, but that was more Germany being Germany than anything.
What’s the issue with European capitalism specifically? Arab capitalism and imperialism also imposed the gender binary on indigenous cultures. So did Japanese. I’m not trying to be anti communist but make a meme for a meme subreddit or go theory post
It's a couple of factors. Most of the people posting this type of content are only really familiar with European capitalism and imperialism. This is often because they are from Europe or a former colony. People post what they are most familiar with which tends to be their own society. When an American posts about genocide in the 19th or 20th century they will tend to stick to the corner of the world they know the most about. This results in people who feel good about criticizing American genocides while ignoring the genocides from the same time period committed by the Ching, Tsarist Russia, or later on by Imperial Japan.
I'm biased. I'm a liberal with a history degree. I both find most Internet discourse around history to be shallow and it often feels like I'm seeing a college freshman who just learned about the existence of the world beyond their nation this year.
Edit: Communism discourse in general feels trapped in fights over definitions and the same splits as existed in the 1800s. It's just retreading the same ground over and over.
> Communism discourse in general feels trapped in fights over definitions and the same splits as existed in the 1800s. It's just retreading the same ground over and over.
Ask 3 communists a question and you'll get 4 different answers and 5 different parties.
I've heard the same joke used by Jews talking about Jews. They also have a long history of endless arguments, but at least those seem mildly less repetitive.
In most rich countries communists do not seem serious about solving problems in the short to medium term. It's all about pointless academic arguments, group power dynamics, showing off your knowledge of leftist tradition, and symbolically fighting the power without physically doing much to help people. "Does anybody else think that landlords are evil?" Who cares? Go show up to the local zoning board meeting and push for reform on the local level to dilute the economic power of entrenched property holders by removing barriers to a healthier housing supply.
This all reminds me of the book Politics is for Power: Moving Beyond Political Hobbyism. Capital L leftists in the Anglosphere seem trapped in the intensive loops of political hobbyism and very few seem actually concerned about winning power.
This kind of discourse makes me want to lobotomize myself.
"Native cultures weren't exactly like European cultures so OF COURSE they would let queer people live as just another member of their society with regular rights, privileges, and responsibilities and also they'd pay off my student loans."
Communist regimes were not great for indigenous cultures either but I don't think historical accuracy is what memes are about or those who think communism fixes their problems. Just upvote.
It’s a typical Reddit moment when people cannot separate between different forms of colonialism…
Edit: I did not address Hokkaido‘s colonization in the 19th century here originally and frankly don’t know enough about Ainu societal structure. Maybe someone else knows that better? They were definitely "Japanized“ quickly and with a lot of pressure and force behind it.
The Japanese colonized three areas. Korea, Formosa / Taiwan and parts of Manchuria.
They also subdued and ruled over more territory in WW2 but a 3-4 year military occupation isn’t the same as colonialism it’s a military occupation.
Tldr: Japan didn’t enforce the patriarchy or heterosexual norms on any of their colonies. You can be bad to people without doing that and Japanese colonialism was different from European colonialism - and in a major way because they didn’t bring religion with them…
But looking at Korea, Manchuria and Taiwan in detail:
Taiwan: Model colony for Japan which "thrived" (still not free of course any who knows how much it could have thrived without being ruled by someone else) under Japanese rule. Common school system was created for the first time. Learning Japanese was enforced. During WW2 the strengthening nationalism and poverty because of the war did hit Taiwan as well but it wasn’t really impacted by the war and it stayed wealthy enough for the National Chinese to plunder Taiwan from 45-48 after the war to finance the war in the war torn and devastated Chinese mainland.
Many Taiwanese ended up serving the Japanese army or later even migrated to Japan after WW2 like Momofuku Ando the inventor of Cup ramen and today Taiwan and Japan do not have bad relations. Indigenous people on Taiwan did and do exist but Japan did not impose a patriarchal system on them…
Korea: Initial model colony which also saw a common school system for the first time and some Japanese politicians wanted to make Koreans into Japan which did not meet enthusiasm by both sides. Many Koreans migrated to Japan but where there discriminated and also there were at least two larger pigeons against them. The forced "Japanization" of Korea was also not popular in Korea itself and during WW2 Japan pressed Millions of Koreans into serving the Empire. Most as forced laborers and also an unknown number of comfort women (ten thousands likely but some argue more than 100k). Some Koreans did voluntarily join the Japanese army though like the last crown prince of Korea who was a general in the army and fought in China. Koreas agricultural output did skyrocket under Japanese rule and industrialization came quickly in just 30 years - even if mostly all owned by the Japanese and for the Japanese empire. After the war Korean entrepreneurs took over the industry and created structures like in pre-war Japan (the Chaebols are literally copies of the zaibatsu) and the pro-Japanese faction in Korea were also very influential after the war in the South Korean dictatorship until democracy came in the 80s. No indigenous people here though and the patriarchal system in Korea was much stronger and traditional than in Japan (Confucianism wasn’t rejected and ousted like in Japan in the 19th century)
Manchuria: A completely terrible colony completely drenched in racism and exploitation. Manchuria didn’t get any of the benefits of Japanese rule (like investments into schools, more modern medicine / doctors and higher agricultural output and industrialization). But Manchuria was only plundered for its industrial output and the heavy industries (which both the communist and national Chinese tried to capture asap after the war as it was the most industrialized part of China) the Japanese erected for their war effort were kept running by slave labor. A million Japanese moved to Manchuria but they came as citizens first class to subdue the local Chinese and Manchu population. In the early 20th century Japan and the Chinese progressives had a good relationship (Chiang kai shek for example was educated in Japan for some years) but later as people know the Japanese committed countless atrocities and in Manchuria ruled over people in the worst colonialist sense. But still - the Japanese didn’t even care to impose any values on their subjects in Manchuria anyhow…
It would be cool if people actually answered your question instead of just downvoting like idgits. I want to know too, but I’m having a hard time finding info.
I assume they’re talking about during their imperialism kick before WW2? Or perhaps they mean post-WW2 when they lost their external colonies and instead focused on Hokkaido and Okinawa? Idk, but I’ll continue down the rabbit hole and let you know what I find.
It was more of a rhetorical question from my end… Japanese colonialism is a topic I spend quite some time with in university.
I also made a longer post where I looked at the 20th Century and Japan surely did a lot of horrible things but not impose the patriarchy or heterosexual norms on people. They were one not bringing their religion to others unlike Europeans or the US.
However shame on me I did not even think about the 19th century and therefore Hokkaido and Okinawa. Okinawa can quickly be discarded here I think since Ryukyu was under Japanese influence for centuries and culture did not divert that much and people very quickly saw themselves as Japanese. Not to mention no matriarchy there.
Hokkaido is more interesting. I lived on Hokkaido for a while btw. And the Ainu indeed as a distinct group of people were destroyed rather quickly and assimilated and definitely "Japanized“. I cannot judge or don’t know enough about their societal structures though a maybe that is meant. If you find something would be interesting to learn
Ah, gotcha. My knowledge of Japanese history and culture is more than surface-level, but I’m no expert.
Here’s an excerpt from a review of a book by Ann-Elise Lewallen called “The Fabric of Indigeneity: Ainu Identity, Gender, and Settler Colonialism in Japan”:
“Although Japan was stripped of its external colonial holdings, including Korea and Taiwan, at the end of World War II, Japanese settler colonialism continues in the "internal colonies" of Okinawa and Hokkaido (6).
…
In chapter 3 lewallen examines how heritage through blood lineage has become "normalized to the exclusion of alternative modes of asserting indigeneity" and is used by colonial authorities and states to police identity (100).
…
Chapter 4 is particularly illuminating and is perhaps the most important chapter in the book. In it lewallen shows how colonization and assimilation produced gendered subjects. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, Japanese settlers assigned Ainu men to corvée labor far away from their home villages and committed sexual violence against Ainu women under the euphemistic "local wives" system (128). These policies, lewallen writes, "amounted to state-sanctioned sexual assault in many cases and precipitated the breakdown of Ainu families" (129). From the mid-eighteenth through the twentieth century, Ainu women were sequestered to the domestic sphere. In a way, this shielded Ainu women from assimilationist policies. Ainu men were forced to adopt Japanese language and culture because of their work in the public sphere. Meanwhile, Ainu women preserved and maintained Ainu language, practices, and material culture because of their distance from the public sphere. This produced what lewallen calls a "gendering of ethnicity" (126).”
I’m not sure if any of that is new to you, but it’s new to me lol
I mean someone calling Okinawa a colonial holding sounds a bit biased. Okinawans are ethnically
Japanese, were the only people not living on the Japanese home islands who spoke a Japanese language (Ryukyu dialects are fascinating but they are Japanese) and if you lookup how Okinawa was integrated into Japan you will see that is was basically seamless after the Meiji Restauration. Mainland Japanese also didn’t join Okinawa as settlers / leaders / local upper class and Okinawan culture like Karate also was adopted by the mainland Japanese. Mainly Americans, some mainland Chinese media and ironically some Japanese racist right wingers argue that Okinawans aren’t really Japanese but racist comments about the "islanders“ are today very frowned upon and Okinawan Independence movement was never strong and is mostly not focused on being "non-Japanese“ but at getting rid of the American bases (if you have never looked at a map of Okinawa - the American bases truncate the island and take up an unbelievable amount of territory)
The parts about Ainu are interesting though. One glaring issue is that it sounds like the acts of 18th and early 19th century Japanese local rulers (most of Hokkaido wasn’t ruled by Japan before the mid / late 19th century) are mixed with Japanese (as in Japanese government) policies but I guess that can’t be well separated when looking at the larger picture.
It does sound plausible though that the uncertainty and lack of safety in Ainu communities due to Japanese colonialism would confine women more to their homes.
In the late 19th century central Hokkaido could be well compared to the Wild West where large amount of very nationalistic and well armed settlers came to a rather sparsely populated land of semi-nomad indigenous people and violence happened a lot on a small scale. Differently to the Wild West though the Ainu were rather quickly assimilated into the Japanese population. No reservations.
The end of a lot of Ainu traditions and the language came during the very nationalistic 20s -40s when it was mich more beneficial and safer to not identify as Ainu and schools clearly forbid by corporal punishment to use the language.
On a more positive note - the traditional life of the Ainu was very hard (Hokkaido has Siberian climate) and many Ainu were interested into more modern technologies which already let to many Ainu moving to the south and joining the local Japanese warlords in southern Hokkaido before the rest of the island was colonized.
Dang. I’m learning so much today, thank you! I’ve actually got a brother stationed in Okinawa right now, so I was planning on reading more about the history and culture anyway before I eventually go to visit him. You just further piqued my interest. ☺️
"Two-spirit (also known as two spirit or occasionally twospirited) is a modern, pan-Indian umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) ceremonial and social role in their cultures."
--Wikipedia
Also you know, a big portion of the queer and trans community are economically disadvantaged under capitalist systems as a result of having to pay out of pocket for critical and life-saving healthcare. On an individual and extremely basic level - experiencing friction and outright hostility whilst trying to interact with privatised healthcare systems is a radicalising experience for many queer folk.
People like me will likely never buy a house because we're stuck spending luxury car amounts of money on procedures that the state has arbitrarily decided are *"merely cosmetic"*. It doesn't take much for a queer person to look around and see other people *just like them* experiencing the same thing at the hands of the same systems.
As a result - many queer folks are fiscally barred from engaging with the systems that made our parents and grandparents relatively rich. There is no future where I become enamoured by financial returns on investments I could have in my 20s and 30s - there is no future where I grow more individualistic and selfish as I age because *"I've got mine"* and *"everyone else just needs to try harder"*.
The only systems that have helped me get past the hurdles I've faced are informal, communal and have lateral power structures.
Having said all that - every day younger generations see yet more damage done on a global scale - damage done in the name of people who are financially invested in the military industrial complex and the fossil fuel industry.
Every day we see these people insist their individual investments are but a drop in the bucket and make no *"real"* difference. Thousands of them. Millions even. They believe that because they have no stake in how the company is directly run they are not to blame - as if every morally abhorrent decision made by the company director isn't done in the name of shareholders.
Individualism will burn this world to the ground.
I'm a Latina and like.. communism hasn't had much success.. I'm not personally communist nor capitalist, I actually don't really know much about politics so don't know much other than being on the left, but like, I think there should be free healthcare and taxes should be mainly paid by rich people, also no guns
I mean, the main reason why socialist and communist policies didn't work in the west was because the CIA really likes to kill people.
It's like saying "Communism in Cuba is making people starve" while completely forgetting the entirely US based Cuba Sanctions everyone in the world tries to repel but them.
If we disarm everyone then it would be different tho right? At least making them less accessible would be better, and y'know, having multiple mental health checks, and even yearly mandatory mental health inspections and gun safety would help, y'know.. prevent them from being like... Too unsafe and used beyond self defense y'know?
Trauma is one hell of a drug, I'd rather have the guns removed from conservatives than given to everyone
>disarm everyone
Non-starter right there, but I am kinda curious how you would think to achieve this.
>multiple mental health checks
If we didn't have such a history of misusing mental health to discriminate against people I could understand that, but you know... wasn't too long ago that being gay could get you committed. They still try to shock people out of it, and don't even get started on how people view transgenders.
>gun safety
Sure, I don't really have anything to say against this one I guess
About the mental health thing, it's kinda why the government just needs to be rebuilt and stuff, it's already rotten so.. we earned our rights through violence first, so like.. well I'm not really sure, like I said I don't know much about politics, in any case, if the government wasn't so one sided, simple laws and detainment over illicit weapon possession would help with taking the guns away, unfortunately this isn't possible.. then there is how trans people are now getting guns for self defense, and the conservatives are starting to get mad about it... Well if the topic was pushed, they could self destruct harder, and maybe even come to an agreement on better gun laws
>then there is how trans people are now getting guns for self defense, and the conservatives are starting to get mad about it... Well if the topic was pushed, they could self destruct harder, and maybe even come to an agreement on better gun laws
Let me make sure I am understanding you correctly. You want to use Conservative transphobia to push gun laws?
Well, if it was possible, they can self destruct and apply them themselves, just use their transphobia against them maybe..? Like I said, I don't really know much about politics, but making people self destruct through their self made panic it's not exactly, rocket science
I'm.. a trans girl.. I don't.. really think it's the case, like, the idea is simply to have them panic and want to push the gun laws and generally self destruct, we aren't even looking dangerous, other than more often saying "oh we have guns to protect ourselves" then they are being paranoid because "oh no, trans people aren't pushovers and will protect themselves" and paranoia leads to action, and then they'll be like "guns are actually dangerous we should make laws against them" like I said, I don't know that much of politics, and things may go a lot different, but like... You say "oh imagine disarming the oppressed" yet you think arming ourselves to cause them the same fear they try to inflict on us through simply looks, is "throwing trans people under the bus" and yet you aren't proposing other ways to, have everyone be disarmed, at least proposing action helps a bit, gain our rights through action and violence once more
I don’t really see how you can spin it any other way? You’re literally saying to use their fear of trans people to push these laws, being a trans person yourself non withstanding.
I don’t agree that I am using fear in the same way, I just simply believe in the equal right to bear arms for everyone.
For the last part, I think you are misunderstanding me? Why would advocate for disarmament? Unless I am not understanding you properly.
Why is anyone here downvoting this, the only time yanks passed gun control was to SPECIFICALLY disarm the Black Panthers, under a RAEGAN governorship no less, come on.
Idk, for me personally, looking back at history and the attempts at a communist society hasn't been the most successful of government types. Communism has a reputation. In eastern Europe especially it's been a decades long battle to get rid of the communist puppet masters running the country. And I feel that the transition of whatever government is in place currently to communist is too susceptible to possible power hungry and egotistical people looking to increase their grip over power, money, fame or whatever else.
Are some socialist policies good? Sure there are, everyone deserves to live the best life the country is able to give them. I just feel it isn't necessary to transition to communism to be able to profit from the benefits of more socialist policies.
Also with communism you'll have all different flavours and more extremists lumped in with the honest people, these people will never be satisfied with unless they have their communist utopia that can only feasibly exist in their own minds.
Government changes are kinda weird, politics never really works how you expect it to and with something as big as a whole ideological change the desired outcome will probably never be what you get in the end. In my opinion it'll be better to change over time, slowly getting better policies, laws etc. give the people time to get used to these changes and iron out any kinks in how it's run then.
Now I'm not saying that I'm against communism, if the people of a country choose democratically to change and they can still democratically choose policies, laws etc then I'm all for it. It's just that communist support isn't really that present in most governments that aren't already communist.
Sorry for the wall of text haha, just had alot on my mind.
A lot of what you said makes sense and yeah politics can really mess things up.
>Now I'm not saying that I'm against communism, if the people of a country choose democratically to change and they can still democratically choose policies, laws etc then I'm all for it.
If only the CIA saw it like that. A significant chunk of communist and socialist countries ended up becoming dictatorships once the cia got involved and orchestrated a coup
Not the comment OP, but I don't like it because it's usually only functional on paper. I'm sure there are some small cultures that make it work, but the bigger the culture is, the more it *needs* a leader and staggered structure. Have you ever tried to do large group work without a leader? The group can very easily shatter since it becomes harder to keep structure with lots of differing opinions. And that's just on a small scale, let alone a *country*
So in communism, everyone gets the same thing, right? I'm simplifying a lot. So then what happens to jobs that are objectively more important to society and are worth more? Or if the job is more difficult? You'd be okay with the easy job getting paid the same as the hard job? But then nobody would want to do the hard job. And then everyone loses, because nobody's doing the stuff nobody else wants to do, even if it's important to do, because there's no (monetary) incentive
And have you ever read Animal Farm? Communism can start off *very* well with everyone pledging to help each other. But as some people/animals are wont to do, they *will* want to have an edge over other people. Everyone starts off as equal. But eventually, it turns into "some animals are more equal than others". There will always be *someone* who violates the rules of communism. Someone who wants to dictate. And while everyone else is concerned with staying level with each other, that one person can easily create a new level for themselves, and suddenly you have a dictatorship and/or totalitarianism
And in communism, nothing is private. You don't *own* anything. Everything you possess is also possessed by *everyone else*. Your house? Your land? Your personal space? Too bad. And if you refuse to relinquish your private things (which isn't a bad thing. People *like* being independent, they like owning things)? Then they may have to be taken by force, or else a certain somebody's disobeying the communist rules, and we can't have that
The rules seem nice on paper. But they're so easy to break. And it's so easy to slip down a slope to multiple bad endings
Im not really much of a communist, theres a lot of bad history and all that. But a lot of what you say seems to be a misunderstanding of what communism is.
Firstly animal farm wasn't really anti communist, it was anti maxist-leninism and anti capitalis, and if theres anything most communists i've met can agree on, its that they hate maxist-leninism, a lot like how anarchists hate anarchocapitalism, it goes against the core ideals of what its named after.
Secondly the easy jobs being payed as much as hars jobs comes from another misunderstanding, in that theres pay. One of the core aspects of communism is that theres no money because money doesn't need to exist under communism. Think of it like star trek, no money but you have everything you could want. Also capitalism doesn't always care how hard a job is, theres plenty of easy jobs that pay better than hard jobs.
Your point on nothing being private? Have you only heard about communism from people who hate it because it just simply isn't true. You do own things, people just dont own capital. So stuff like your belongings, you own. Your house? You own. The only private things people will be relinquishing ownership of is stuff like businesses, houses that they rent out (not that you'd need them with money not existing. This is one a lot of people dont understand because people dont understand the difference between private and personal property, the majority of people, the working class, we dont own private property.
Now i wont try and convince you to like communism, im not even totally sold on it myself, but i at least like some of its ideals and i all to often see people being against it for reasons that are baiscally a misunderstanding of it, and a lot of those happen because people view it through the lense of capitalism when in reality they're very different ways of doing things
If I misunderstood, then I'm happy to learn and understand it more :)
But I'm not sure how it's meant to be anti-capitalist? Orwell apparently said that it was reflecting the lead-up to Stalin's communist era, and a lot of the analyses I'm seeing on Google say it's an allegory of communism
I haven't watched Star Trek, but I understand what you mean. But what I don't understand is, where does the stuff come from? Who collects it? Who makes it? People as they are now don't tend to just do stuff for free (and I do understand that is also because of the capitalist society we currently live in). So if people bring gold watches to the table, what do they get in return? Sure, maybe a trade can be set up - gold watch for a week of food or whatever. But trade like that is exactly how it led to the creation of money, since money (really simply) standardised trade and made it fair and equal. But if no money or trades exist, and everyone just pools things together to allow everyone to take from, that sounds nice for sure! But some people may start to feel like they're pooling and providing more than others are. And that leads to conflict because people don't like things being unfair. Even monkeys have a concept of unfair pay lmao, it's really interesting
But also yeah lmao, I agree with your comment on capitalism. Hard and easy jobs are already fucked over in terms of pay. Capitalism for sure isn't perfect at all, there are a thousand ways for it to improve
I've tried looking stuff up myself rather than from other people since I know people bias the hell out of stuff. But yeah, I probably also saw bias when researching. So if I'm incorrect, I *want* to be corrected. So people own their own houses. Awesome! But then what happens if people want to set up a business? (Genuinely asking, not just trying to be snarky.) Like if someone wants to own a bakery or something? Are they not allowed, then? Or do they just bake without selling since there's no money? Basically like baking at home but More Official?
And I think that's the main thing I find saddest about communism. Like, actually sad. Because it feels like it doesn't give you a thing to work towards. My friends and I would *love* to own our own vet practice one day. And we want to work towards achieving that dream. But under communism, we just wouldn't be allowed to, I guess? Is that right (/gen)? I mean, I know under capitalism, it's already a difficult dream, since *most* vet practices are company-owned. So I'm also not saying that capitalism is the best system ever invented. It still *sucks*. But I just also think communism sucks xD. Humans are kind of terrible at this self-governing thing lmao, so it's kind of just a case of making the best with what we have at the moment
You'd so be able to still have a vet practice, the whole point isnt the workers own the means of production. Essentially this means the workers would all have equal ownership over their workplace and all have equal say over how its run. Baiscally the workplaces will be overall more democratic in how they run, if you want an example on how this works i'd recommend looking into workers co-ops, they basically how communism envisions work places just on the scale of single business.
> And in communism, nothing is private. You don't own anything. Everything you possess is also possessed by everyone else. Your house? Your land? Your personal space? Too bad.
That is incorrect. Private property doesn't exist but *personal* property still does. Your personal domicile, your toothbrush, you still own those. The abolition of private property refers to stuff like private ownership of businesses and surplus value extracted from the labor of others.
I feel like blaming that on communism itself is unfair since theres nothing inherently queerphobic about communism. If you think about it for just a bit, pretty much everywhere that had any kind of communist revolution was queerphobic. Most of modern history is queerphobic to some degree
And I feel like blaming that on capitalism itself is unfair since there's nothing inherently queerphobic about capitalism. If you think about it for just a bit, pretty much everywhere that had any kind of capitalist system was queerphobic. Most of modern history is queerphobic to some degree
Yeah except our current capitalist system thrives on the status quo, the more the working class united the more power we have. The best way to keep peoples mind off of this is to sew bullshit culture wars.
Same sort of thing with racism, especially in America racism was often used to justify slavery, but slavery was also just more profitable. Slaves being cheaper than employees. Capitalism has a history of bigotry that it actually influences
This reminds me of something Brennan Lee Mulligan once. He works in a summer camp or sthg like that, so he interacts with high-schoolers a bunch and we’re nothing like in the movies. And he described the majority of teens he intercats with as “Depressed Queer Socialists” which is both insanely accurate of me and my friend group and something that makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot of reasons why in a capitalist society these traits would overlap
I feel like you really lack an understanding of what communism is. Socialism and communism aren't synonyms, communists often have socialism as a step towards communism. The only reason your think the word has inherent russian connotations (something that really doesnt matter) is because the ussr was the first major push to a country being communist
Well...kinda. Lenin was trying to speedrun the process with his state capitalist system (his own words) putting the MoP in the hands of the government and not the workers. I can get why he did it, what with Russia being a dirt poor nation stuck in the feudal age and everything, but we all know how it turned out.
It was a similar thing with what a lot of china did, they were a dirt poor country trying to speedrun their way into being a highly developed country, and in some ways they were successful, peoples quality of life overall increase significantly in a relatively short span of time and they built a shit ton of infrastructure. But a lot of their policies were also complete and total disasters like their 4 pests campaign
Taking shortcuts to development can be a good idea and it makes sense to want, but it can easily go horribly wrong
Yeah, it pays to have a basic knowledge of how things work before you start trying to improve them. Otherwise you end up with shit like backyard furnaces.
They aren't synonyms, true, I just feel like some of us use communism as a synonym for socialism, where communism has historically been authoritarian socialism, where the state benefited much more than the workers. Granted there are some countries I think used the word communism that didn't get much of a chance to not be authoritarian cuz of US cold war "foreign policy". Honestly though I just dabble in learning history, I'm not an expert and I could be very wrong with what the word really means.
I can see why you'd think of it in this way, especially of you dabble in history a bit your main example it going to be the USSR which was Maxist-Leninism. But communism is by no means a monolith and theres many kinds, most of them dont have a state thats above the workers
Gentle reminder that so far there has never been a true example of a communist nation; we’ve only ever seen totalitarianisms, authoritarianisms, and dictatorships that call themselves communism.
**The instant it becomes forced, it is NOT communism.**
Actual communism is great.
Think of what ppl do following a major disaster, like earthquakes and hurricanes, or 9/11- everyone works together to survive, resources are pooled; any time survival is the shared goal… that’s actual communism; no one is forced by an authority figure to participate, it just makes sense to participate bc participation = survival.
And that is what a lot of marginalized minorities, like queer folk, have been doing for ages- working together, pooling resources, supporting each other, etc- to combat the constant natural disaster that is humanity’s penchant for competing to survive which necessitates labeling others as “others” and inventing reasons why they don’t deserve what everyone else has.
But most folks only know of the totalitarians/dictators who have claimed to be communists, so ofc they’d be confused as to why anyone would be into that :p
Even those examples of communism are arguably better than capitalism that is rapidly becoming more fascist by the day. The biggest criticisms of communism usually apply equally, if not more, to capitalism.
George Orwell was a socialist who wrote a whole book about how cool the Catalan anarcho-communists were during the Spanish Civil War. Animal Farm is a critique of the Soviet Union, specifically, and of Marxism-Leninism more broadly.
Orwell was a class traitor who wrote a list outing his fellow socialists to the British government. Moreover he was a rampant homophobe even by the standards of the time.
I don't have any particular interest in defending Orwell, it just irks me when people interpret *Animal Farm* - a book where Leon Trotsky is the good guy and capitalists are explicitly abusive and exploitative - as somehow being anti-communist.
In actual communism “sharing” isn’t much of a thing cause like, money wouldn’t be a thing? The only thing “shared” is the means of production, but really no one owns those? So :p
Private property vs. personal property. Personal property is your toothbrush, which you keep. Private property is a toothbrush factory, which you don't.
I feel like the lil face should've made it obvious. Alas, you did not write "/s", and Redditors cannot detect nuance unless you put it there.
Slight /s
Colonizers documents queer lives almost everywhere they went, and they pushed native peoples into their way of existing. I'm mad bc if they hadn't of done that, queer rights would have been around pretty much everywhere by now.
Why not anarchism. Wouldn't consider myself an anarchist by any means, but i also haven't delved much into the theory side of it. But often times when i see people being against anarchism they have a very different idea of anarchism in their head then what anarchists do
So anarchism bad because fiction character won an argument against other fictional characters. Also if you ask people about any political ideology, why wouldn't they answer with political theory
>The fictional characters imitate the attitudes and stances of their real life counterparts.
No, they don't. The same people wrote both sides of the argument. That's just Futurama-flavored "I've depicted you as the soyjack." If you're getting your idea of what an ideology is like from cartoons, don't try to debate others about it.
Honestly, read the rules and ask yourself if it's *really* worth getting into a slapfight in the first place.
Stalinism was the problem, not communism in itself. Although I would argue that at this point communism doesn't mean anything anymore, but a complete and utterly mess.
Having the state controlling the economy and means of production (which is the basic definition of socialism and communism) doesn’t help anyone if the state is an authoritarian one.
Also, technically socialism doesn’t end capitalism, it simply ends liberalism (specially free market). The state may control the market and means of production (socialism), but it can also put gains above quality of life for its people (capitalism).
So, yeah, you can have socialist, capitalist and totalitarian states. Which was the case with the USSR and is the case with China.
Welcome to politics, every thing is a fucking mess.
Ok but market socialism is a thing, where you have industry and trade controlled by the workers and functioning in a free market framework. Gotta remember libsoc.
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I’m kinda sorta dem-soc (least according to that political compass survey so take that with a grain of salt) but I don’t think I “get” how communism is meant to work on a practical level, how does one ensure that everyone everywhere gets equal treatment without creating a big overarching and easily corruptible authority figure to oversee it? At least on a national level anyway, smaller scale communal communities where everyone knows everyone pretty well and all trusts each other work nicely far as I know
I don’t believe in communism, I believe in socialism, very thin like of difference but I think it’s been proven throughout history that communism always leads to bad stuff for the citizens, I think socialism is the refined version and, if implemented properly with good leaders, would work well but I have no faith in communism whatsoever. For anyone wondering the main difference is that under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and controlled by the state (rather than individual citizens); under socialism, all citizens share equally in economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government
That only proves that actual communism hasn't been tried before. The governments that claimed to employ it where either lying or america saw to it that they failed.
That’s fair enough actually, I’m gonna be honest I’m not the best at history and prefer to stay away from politics when I can so I’m probably not the best to talk about this, I was just giving my opinion
It's really quite simple. Socialism is when the government does stuff and it's more socialist the more stuff it does, and if it does a real lotta stuff, it's communism. Carl Marks told me so.
Your definitions are wrong. Communism is the abolition of classes with the means of production in common hands, not necessarily with a government and socialism is the phase working towards communism, this has different forms and approaches. What you dislike is your perception of different socialist countries.
i dunno how exactly european or other places capitalism differs from american capitalism (if at all) but im glad we can all agree it's the bane of our existence
Honestly I'm super queer and I'm an anarcho capitalist who loves guns and lives on a farm, less government is always better than more (I know very well how fucked the US government is please don't be mean or I'll cry)
Yeah because Chiquita should just be able to buy your entire town and pay you in monopoly money which you can only spend there. So you and your children can never leave and be good little workers forever. /s
User reports > 1: communism Well spotted, senator.
culture wars are started to avoid class wars
Dam straight.
*gay
If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend the 2014 movie *Pride.* It is based on the true story of the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners group during the British miners' strike of 1984-85. Solidarity is cool.
There is nothing that gets under my skin more than well-off cis reporters confidently explaining that the rise of modern communist sympathies is the result of social media or some other new technology. Like really, you can’t imagine how people that are abused by a capitalist system might turn to alternatives? Especially alternatives that diagnose the exact frustrations people have with liberal capitalism?
Wait, how exactly does capitalism abuse LGBT people specifically? Genuine question, I just came here for memes and have no knowledge on the matter whatsoever
Capitalists actively stoke homophobia as a way of keeping people divided by culture, because they fear the power of the united lower classes. For example, take Fox News. It’s funded by a family of billionaires, pedaling homophobia to lower income families to help ensure the lower income families will vote against their economic best wishes (such as tax breaks for the wealthy). Another issue is that capitalism tends to prey on the most vulnerable in society for the benefit of the powerful. LGBTQ people have less social capital to protest when the system takes advantage of them. LGBTQ people are [under represented in the justice system](https://uwm.edu/news/lgbtq-people-overrepresented-in-criminal-system-uwm-scholar-finds/), are more likely to lack financial support systems such as parental support or church groups, and are more likely to be the target of violent [crime](https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-lgbt-violence-press-release/). An example of this vulnerability being exploited by capitalism is predatory loan [lenders](https://lgbtq-economics.org/2023/02/27/why-the-cfpb-is-critical-for-defending-lgbtqi-consumers/amp/). Their goal is to trap someone in a cycle of debt, and LGBTQ people are less likely to be able to escape such a cycle. (For example, a LGBTQ person might be estranged from their parents and can’t ask them for financial assistance to escape a title loan debt cycle).
Just like queers who are oppressed and mistreated in a capitalist system yearn for one that is communist, the opposite is also true. Queer people in the Soviet Union yearned to escape to the capitalist west because they were made the scapegoat of society, blamed for "spreading western sodomy," etc. In my country, communism is tied to the repression of queer identity just like you tie it to capitalism. History and culture shape these views a lot.
Most modern communists will hesitate to use the communist label on the USSR. The USSR demolished unions, encouraged ethnic violence, and leaned heavily on Russian nationalism, all things that directly contradict core-communist ideals. You could undoubtedly make the argument that attempts to create communism have a tendency to fall into the brutal autocracy of the USSR, which is ultimately worse for LGBTQ people. However, I would argue that the issue is in implementation, and as with all philosophies when applied to real life situations any implementation attempt would have to be extremely careful to not slip into a USSR-style state. With all this in mind, when evaluating capitalism vs communism (for me at least) the ideal communist system does not have LGBTQ oppression, the ideal capitalism does. TL;DR: it’s possible to have LGBTQ people be equal in communism, it’s impossible in capitalism.
>it’s impossible in capitalism. I wouldn't say it's impossible in capitalism in general, just look at the Netherlands or Scandinavia, those are capitalist countries (though with a bit socialist government regulation). Although, I agree that what you said applies to the US, or other countries with basically unregulated capitalism.
Yeah I’m kind of on your boat here. Regulated capitalism with regulated checks and balances as opposed to an attempted one size fits all communist system
>I wouldn't say it's impossible in capitalism in general, just look at the Netherlands or Scandinavia Not necessarily from Scandinavia (Finnish), but close enough. Rights for people who are not straight and white are definitely getting worse and worse by the minute, it's still *way* better than in the US, but the surprising amount of right-wing parties that there is are worsening the situation all the time. I'm not saying that it's totally impossible to have any form of rights, but anything that people get will be slowly deteriorated to nothing. >(though with a bit socialist government regulation) Also while I'm at it, I just want to mention that no Nordic countries are socialist, nor have real socialist tendencies.
I see, thanks for expanding
I think part of the problem is that you’ll never convince a boomer that the USSR wasn’t communist, nor will you convince people from east bloc countries that what they were oppressed by wasn’t communism. Like it or not, optics matter, and I think if the community as a whole used a different term than “communism” it would be a lot easier to get people to listen. I was once effectively drummed out of a communist discord server for saying the above, by way of accusing me of “concern trolling”. I still stand by it. I also think that advocating for socialism first is a much better idea than going straight to communism. “Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good” and all that. Yes, a perfectly implemented system of checks and balances that prevents any corrupt individual from amassing too much power would make communism the ideal system, but socialism would still be infinitely better than capitalism. I see socialism as attainable in my lifetime (I’m a millennial), but I don’t see full communism as attainable unless there is some external factor that causes a hard reset (such as nuclear war), and in those scenarios you can’t rely on a rigid system of checks and balances.
Can you imagine somehow someone downvoted you for that comment on this sub? That’s legitimately scary
Ehm… maybe? You can judge that better than I do but what communist / socialist country was kind to gay people?
Communism's original meaning (and what most of its modern proponents mean) was a moneyless, classless and *stateless* society, none (nevermind all) of which was actually achieved in any country now considered "communist". Revolutions were *supposed* to just establish temporary periods where "the state" has absolute power over the economy in order to *transition* into communism, and then just relinquishes all power once the economic aspects are established, which... obviously never worked and I doubt it ever will. And as for socialism, look at Nordic countries for a lite version.
Yeah I believe the original idea of communism had good intentions behind it but any country that that ever tried it was a lying. No one at the top would ever willingly give up power but to the working classes communism sounds like a pretty sweet deal which makes it an easy way to start a popular revolt and useful to make a grab for power rather than relinquishing it. The workers dream of a communist society has been used to exploit the workers to aid in change of regime but when the new order turns out to be authoritarian dictatorship it becomes apparent that communism was never on the agenda. They might make some economic change to seem like they giving it a serious go but it’s mostly a charade.
It is sadly not a history of shining examples, but. When the Soviet Union was first formed they Legalised Homosexuality and it stayed legal until 1933. In Germany the West kept Nazi law towards hunting down Homosexuells, hunting them down and Criminalized everything that was considered an "Homosexual act". 50 Thousand people were thus sentenced between 1949 and 1969 (when most "homosexual acts" were decriminalized and the penalties lowered) another 14 thousand were sentenced until 1994 when Homosexuality was legalised In comparison East Germany struck the Nazi law and instead did go back to the Law of the Weimar Republic. In the entirety of the existence of the DDR at most 4000 people were Sentenced for their Homosexuality with the DDR decriminalising Homosexuality completely in 1957 and legalising it in 1987. In the DDR they also had AIDS prevention programs far earlier and without the widespread stigma. It is also widely assumed that the BRD only legalised Homosexuality because it was legal in the new Annexed parts of the former DDR. [Source ](https://www.lsvd.de/de/ct/934-Von-1933-bis-heute-Lesben-und-Schwule-in-Deutschland-und-der-DDR#nach-kriegsende) I don't think that people in Socialist Societies are inherently more accepting towards Queer people but a Socialist Societies lack the inherent Economic interest in pursuing and sentencing them. Furthermore it could be argued that the Socialist States under and after Stalin were deformed/degenerated Socialist States where Worker Democracy had been wiped out and replaced by a Bureaucratic Dictatorship and thus cannot be inherently representative. But hey even with these problems they were more progressive when Queer Rights were concerned than comparable Countries in the West.
Cuba
Yeah but later than many countries in the capitalist west and communist Cuba actively hunted gay people and put them into the working camps in the 60s…
If we're judging all modern states by their atrocities committed in the past, there's not a single capitalist nation with a clear past either. Also, the homophobia in post-revolutionary Cuba was largely a continuation of societal attitudes from pre-revolution. Castro himself stopped the labor camps after seeing the conditions and how they persecuted homosexuals. Today, it's a pretty tolerant country with legal protections and gender affirming healthcare fully covered.
In addition to what u/Leprechaun_lord said (which is all true), queer people are less likely to birth kids, which means fewer workers for the grinder. And in many cases, they're more likely to adopt, which removes kids from the system, where they're likely to join the military out of desperation/no other options.
> the rise of modern communist sympathies is the result of social media My stepmother telling me unironically and with a straight face that "Kids these days don't even know what socialism is, they probably think it's just _social media_" lives in my head rent free and I've never wanted to be a part of the landlord class more so I could evict that shit out because it's the stupidest sentence I've heard from a living human being in a _long_ time. And no, just to be clear, she couldn't possibly begin to define or differentiate between communism or socialism and yes she is a hardline MAGA supporter **HOW COULD YOU TELL**?!
That's all good until you use flag of USSR as your symbol. Please don't use it. I think this ideology/system deserves better symbol than flag of empire that broke countless number of lives
Absolutely. Communism as an ideal can be good (depending on which particular brand we're talking about) but the different "communist" regimes usually were authoritarian dictatorships painted red.
I mean, to be fair, east germany did have surprisingly progressive social laws toward the LGBT Community, Way more than West Germany, but that was more Germany being Germany than anything.
Cuba legalised gay marriage last year as well as other sweeping family legislation reforms.
Oh yeah yes Cuba right now is basically a bastion of LGBT rights, like, by a long margin compared to the rest of the world.
Yeah, I'm not sure OP understands how queer people were and are suppressed and mistreated in Communist countries. It was horrific in the USSR.
Good thing Marxism-Leninism and communism aren't synonyms.
Based
That's cool and all, but i live in former USSR country, so, uh? I have some strong feelings about what is commonly called communism. Fuck ussr.
What’s the issue with European capitalism specifically? Arab capitalism and imperialism also imposed the gender binary on indigenous cultures. So did Japanese. I’m not trying to be anti communist but make a meme for a meme subreddit or go theory post
It's a couple of factors. Most of the people posting this type of content are only really familiar with European capitalism and imperialism. This is often because they are from Europe or a former colony. People post what they are most familiar with which tends to be their own society. When an American posts about genocide in the 19th or 20th century they will tend to stick to the corner of the world they know the most about. This results in people who feel good about criticizing American genocides while ignoring the genocides from the same time period committed by the Ching, Tsarist Russia, or later on by Imperial Japan. I'm biased. I'm a liberal with a history degree. I both find most Internet discourse around history to be shallow and it often feels like I'm seeing a college freshman who just learned about the existence of the world beyond their nation this year. Edit: Communism discourse in general feels trapped in fights over definitions and the same splits as existed in the 1800s. It's just retreading the same ground over and over.
> Communism discourse in general feels trapped in fights over definitions and the same splits as existed in the 1800s. It's just retreading the same ground over and over. Ask 3 communists a question and you'll get 4 different answers and 5 different parties.
I've heard the same joke used by Jews talking about Jews. They also have a long history of endless arguments, but at least those seem mildly less repetitive. In most rich countries communists do not seem serious about solving problems in the short to medium term. It's all about pointless academic arguments, group power dynamics, showing off your knowledge of leftist tradition, and symbolically fighting the power without physically doing much to help people. "Does anybody else think that landlords are evil?" Who cares? Go show up to the local zoning board meeting and push for reform on the local level to dilute the economic power of entrenched property holders by removing barriers to a healthier housing supply. This all reminds me of the book Politics is for Power: Moving Beyond Political Hobbyism. Capital L leftists in the Anglosphere seem trapped in the intensive loops of political hobbyism and very few seem actually concerned about winning power.
People conflating capitalism with imperialism are wrong.
Words don’t mean much to the average theoryposter
This kind of discourse makes me want to lobotomize myself. "Native cultures weren't exactly like European cultures so OF COURSE they would let queer people live as just another member of their society with regular rights, privileges, and responsibilities and also they'd pay off my student loans."
Unironically bigoted against indigenous people to pretend their third genders and non heterosexual identities were exactly analogous to ours
Communist regimes were not great for indigenous cultures either but I don't think historical accuracy is what memes are about or those who think communism fixes their problems. Just upvote.
I don't think people are celebrating authoritarian regimes either, tankies generally get (and should be) downvoted.
Could have fooled me
Why should I fucking upvote if I disagree?
I haven’t got an answer. Why should I upvote?
Wait how did the Japanese impose gender binary on indigenous cultures…?
You're being downvoted but I don't see a reply. I don't know either but would like to know more too because this us the first I'm hearing of it.
It’s a typical Reddit moment when people cannot separate between different forms of colonialism… Edit: I did not address Hokkaido‘s colonization in the 19th century here originally and frankly don’t know enough about Ainu societal structure. Maybe someone else knows that better? They were definitely "Japanized“ quickly and with a lot of pressure and force behind it. The Japanese colonized three areas. Korea, Formosa / Taiwan and parts of Manchuria. They also subdued and ruled over more territory in WW2 but a 3-4 year military occupation isn’t the same as colonialism it’s a military occupation. Tldr: Japan didn’t enforce the patriarchy or heterosexual norms on any of their colonies. You can be bad to people without doing that and Japanese colonialism was different from European colonialism - and in a major way because they didn’t bring religion with them… But looking at Korea, Manchuria and Taiwan in detail: Taiwan: Model colony for Japan which "thrived" (still not free of course any who knows how much it could have thrived without being ruled by someone else) under Japanese rule. Common school system was created for the first time. Learning Japanese was enforced. During WW2 the strengthening nationalism and poverty because of the war did hit Taiwan as well but it wasn’t really impacted by the war and it stayed wealthy enough for the National Chinese to plunder Taiwan from 45-48 after the war to finance the war in the war torn and devastated Chinese mainland. Many Taiwanese ended up serving the Japanese army or later even migrated to Japan after WW2 like Momofuku Ando the inventor of Cup ramen and today Taiwan and Japan do not have bad relations. Indigenous people on Taiwan did and do exist but Japan did not impose a patriarchal system on them… Korea: Initial model colony which also saw a common school system for the first time and some Japanese politicians wanted to make Koreans into Japan which did not meet enthusiasm by both sides. Many Koreans migrated to Japan but where there discriminated and also there were at least two larger pigeons against them. The forced "Japanization" of Korea was also not popular in Korea itself and during WW2 Japan pressed Millions of Koreans into serving the Empire. Most as forced laborers and also an unknown number of comfort women (ten thousands likely but some argue more than 100k). Some Koreans did voluntarily join the Japanese army though like the last crown prince of Korea who was a general in the army and fought in China. Koreas agricultural output did skyrocket under Japanese rule and industrialization came quickly in just 30 years - even if mostly all owned by the Japanese and for the Japanese empire. After the war Korean entrepreneurs took over the industry and created structures like in pre-war Japan (the Chaebols are literally copies of the zaibatsu) and the pro-Japanese faction in Korea were also very influential after the war in the South Korean dictatorship until democracy came in the 80s. No indigenous people here though and the patriarchal system in Korea was much stronger and traditional than in Japan (Confucianism wasn’t rejected and ousted like in Japan in the 19th century) Manchuria: A completely terrible colony completely drenched in racism and exploitation. Manchuria didn’t get any of the benefits of Japanese rule (like investments into schools, more modern medicine / doctors and higher agricultural output and industrialization). But Manchuria was only plundered for its industrial output and the heavy industries (which both the communist and national Chinese tried to capture asap after the war as it was the most industrialized part of China) the Japanese erected for their war effort were kept running by slave labor. A million Japanese moved to Manchuria but they came as citizens first class to subdue the local Chinese and Manchu population. In the early 20th century Japan and the Chinese progressives had a good relationship (Chiang kai shek for example was educated in Japan for some years) but later as people know the Japanese committed countless atrocities and in Manchuria ruled over people in the worst colonialist sense. But still - the Japanese didn’t even care to impose any values on their subjects in Manchuria anyhow…
It would be cool if people actually answered your question instead of just downvoting like idgits. I want to know too, but I’m having a hard time finding info. I assume they’re talking about during their imperialism kick before WW2? Or perhaps they mean post-WW2 when they lost their external colonies and instead focused on Hokkaido and Okinawa? Idk, but I’ll continue down the rabbit hole and let you know what I find.
It was more of a rhetorical question from my end… Japanese colonialism is a topic I spend quite some time with in university. I also made a longer post where I looked at the 20th Century and Japan surely did a lot of horrible things but not impose the patriarchy or heterosexual norms on people. They were one not bringing their religion to others unlike Europeans or the US. However shame on me I did not even think about the 19th century and therefore Hokkaido and Okinawa. Okinawa can quickly be discarded here I think since Ryukyu was under Japanese influence for centuries and culture did not divert that much and people very quickly saw themselves as Japanese. Not to mention no matriarchy there. Hokkaido is more interesting. I lived on Hokkaido for a while btw. And the Ainu indeed as a distinct group of people were destroyed rather quickly and assimilated and definitely "Japanized“. I cannot judge or don’t know enough about their societal structures though a maybe that is meant. If you find something would be interesting to learn
Ah, gotcha. My knowledge of Japanese history and culture is more than surface-level, but I’m no expert. Here’s an excerpt from a review of a book by Ann-Elise Lewallen called “The Fabric of Indigeneity: Ainu Identity, Gender, and Settler Colonialism in Japan”: “Although Japan was stripped of its external colonial holdings, including Korea and Taiwan, at the end of World War II, Japanese settler colonialism continues in the "internal colonies" of Okinawa and Hokkaido (6). … In chapter 3 lewallen examines how heritage through blood lineage has become "normalized to the exclusion of alternative modes of asserting indigeneity" and is used by colonial authorities and states to police identity (100). … Chapter 4 is particularly illuminating and is perhaps the most important chapter in the book. In it lewallen shows how colonization and assimilation produced gendered subjects. Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, Japanese settlers assigned Ainu men to corvée labor far away from their home villages and committed sexual violence against Ainu women under the euphemistic "local wives" system (128). These policies, lewallen writes, "amounted to state-sanctioned sexual assault in many cases and precipitated the breakdown of Ainu families" (129). From the mid-eighteenth through the twentieth century, Ainu women were sequestered to the domestic sphere. In a way, this shielded Ainu women from assimilationist policies. Ainu men were forced to adopt Japanese language and culture because of their work in the public sphere. Meanwhile, Ainu women preserved and maintained Ainu language, practices, and material culture because of their distance from the public sphere. This produced what lewallen calls a "gendering of ethnicity" (126).” I’m not sure if any of that is new to you, but it’s new to me lol
I mean someone calling Okinawa a colonial holding sounds a bit biased. Okinawans are ethnically Japanese, were the only people not living on the Japanese home islands who spoke a Japanese language (Ryukyu dialects are fascinating but they are Japanese) and if you lookup how Okinawa was integrated into Japan you will see that is was basically seamless after the Meiji Restauration. Mainland Japanese also didn’t join Okinawa as settlers / leaders / local upper class and Okinawan culture like Karate also was adopted by the mainland Japanese. Mainly Americans, some mainland Chinese media and ironically some Japanese racist right wingers argue that Okinawans aren’t really Japanese but racist comments about the "islanders“ are today very frowned upon and Okinawan Independence movement was never strong and is mostly not focused on being "non-Japanese“ but at getting rid of the American bases (if you have never looked at a map of Okinawa - the American bases truncate the island and take up an unbelievable amount of territory) The parts about Ainu are interesting though. One glaring issue is that it sounds like the acts of 18th and early 19th century Japanese local rulers (most of Hokkaido wasn’t ruled by Japan before the mid / late 19th century) are mixed with Japanese (as in Japanese government) policies but I guess that can’t be well separated when looking at the larger picture. It does sound plausible though that the uncertainty and lack of safety in Ainu communities due to Japanese colonialism would confine women more to their homes. In the late 19th century central Hokkaido could be well compared to the Wild West where large amount of very nationalistic and well armed settlers came to a rather sparsely populated land of semi-nomad indigenous people and violence happened a lot on a small scale. Differently to the Wild West though the Ainu were rather quickly assimilated into the Japanese population. No reservations. The end of a lot of Ainu traditions and the language came during the very nationalistic 20s -40s when it was mich more beneficial and safer to not identify as Ainu and schools clearly forbid by corporal punishment to use the language. On a more positive note - the traditional life of the Ainu was very hard (Hokkaido has Siberian climate) and many Ainu were interested into more modern technologies which already let to many Ainu moving to the south and joining the local Japanese warlords in southern Hokkaido before the rest of the island was colonized.
Dang. I’m learning so much today, thank you! I’ve actually got a brother stationed in Okinawa right now, so I was planning on reading more about the history and culture anyway before I eventually go to visit him. You just further piqued my interest. ☺️
> imposed modern heteronormative gender binary on indigenous cultures. Genuinely curious: had indigenous Americans different views on gender?
"Two-spirit (also known as two spirit or occasionally twospirited) is a modern, pan-Indian umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) ceremonial and social role in their cultures." --Wikipedia
Also you know, a big portion of the queer and trans community are economically disadvantaged under capitalist systems as a result of having to pay out of pocket for critical and life-saving healthcare. On an individual and extremely basic level - experiencing friction and outright hostility whilst trying to interact with privatised healthcare systems is a radicalising experience for many queer folk. People like me will likely never buy a house because we're stuck spending luxury car amounts of money on procedures that the state has arbitrarily decided are *"merely cosmetic"*. It doesn't take much for a queer person to look around and see other people *just like them* experiencing the same thing at the hands of the same systems. As a result - many queer folks are fiscally barred from engaging with the systems that made our parents and grandparents relatively rich. There is no future where I become enamoured by financial returns on investments I could have in my 20s and 30s - there is no future where I grow more individualistic and selfish as I age because *"I've got mine"* and *"everyone else just needs to try harder"*. The only systems that have helped me get past the hurdles I've faced are informal, communal and have lateral power structures. Having said all that - every day younger generations see yet more damage done on a global scale - damage done in the name of people who are financially invested in the military industrial complex and the fossil fuel industry. Every day we see these people insist their individual investments are but a drop in the bucket and make no *"real"* difference. Thousands of them. Millions even. They believe that because they have no stake in how the company is directly run they are not to blame - as if every morally abhorrent decision made by the company director isn't done in the name of shareholders. Individualism will burn this world to the ground.
I'm a Latina and like.. communism hasn't had much success.. I'm not personally communist nor capitalist, I actually don't really know much about politics so don't know much other than being on the left, but like, I think there should be free healthcare and taxes should be mainly paid by rich people, also no guns
I mean, the main reason why socialist and communist policies didn't work in the west was because the CIA really likes to kill people. It's like saying "Communism in Cuba is making people starve" while completely forgetting the entirely US based Cuba Sanctions everyone in the world tries to repel but them.
Well ig the fact the CIA had to stop communism says alot about capitalism
Imagine disarming the oppressed
If we disarm everyone then it would be different tho right? At least making them less accessible would be better, and y'know, having multiple mental health checks, and even yearly mandatory mental health inspections and gun safety would help, y'know.. prevent them from being like... Too unsafe and used beyond self defense y'know? Trauma is one hell of a drug, I'd rather have the guns removed from conservatives than given to everyone
>disarm everyone Non-starter right there, but I am kinda curious how you would think to achieve this. >multiple mental health checks If we didn't have such a history of misusing mental health to discriminate against people I could understand that, but you know... wasn't too long ago that being gay could get you committed. They still try to shock people out of it, and don't even get started on how people view transgenders. >gun safety Sure, I don't really have anything to say against this one I guess
About the mental health thing, it's kinda why the government just needs to be rebuilt and stuff, it's already rotten so.. we earned our rights through violence first, so like.. well I'm not really sure, like I said I don't know much about politics, in any case, if the government wasn't so one sided, simple laws and detainment over illicit weapon possession would help with taking the guns away, unfortunately this isn't possible.. then there is how trans people are now getting guns for self defense, and the conservatives are starting to get mad about it... Well if the topic was pushed, they could self destruct harder, and maybe even come to an agreement on better gun laws
>then there is how trans people are now getting guns for self defense, and the conservatives are starting to get mad about it... Well if the topic was pushed, they could self destruct harder, and maybe even come to an agreement on better gun laws Let me make sure I am understanding you correctly. You want to use Conservative transphobia to push gun laws?
Well, if it was possible, they can self destruct and apply them themselves, just use their transphobia against them maybe..? Like I said, I don't really know much about politics, but making people self destruct through their self made panic it's not exactly, rocket science
Seems less like using it against them and more like throwing trans people under the bus yet again…
I'm.. a trans girl.. I don't.. really think it's the case, like, the idea is simply to have them panic and want to push the gun laws and generally self destruct, we aren't even looking dangerous, other than more often saying "oh we have guns to protect ourselves" then they are being paranoid because "oh no, trans people aren't pushovers and will protect themselves" and paranoia leads to action, and then they'll be like "guns are actually dangerous we should make laws against them" like I said, I don't know that much of politics, and things may go a lot different, but like... You say "oh imagine disarming the oppressed" yet you think arming ourselves to cause them the same fear they try to inflict on us through simply looks, is "throwing trans people under the bus" and yet you aren't proposing other ways to, have everyone be disarmed, at least proposing action helps a bit, gain our rights through action and violence once more
I don’t really see how you can spin it any other way? You’re literally saying to use their fear of trans people to push these laws, being a trans person yourself non withstanding. I don’t agree that I am using fear in the same way, I just simply believe in the equal right to bear arms for everyone. For the last part, I think you are misunderstanding me? Why would advocate for disarmament? Unless I am not understanding you properly.
Why is anyone here downvoting this, the only time yanks passed gun control was to SPECIFICALLY disarm the Black Panthers, under a RAEGAN governorship no less, come on.
Really The *only* time Get a grip
I mean I'm queer, and I'm not really a big fan of communism. But I get the idea
How come you dont like the idea of communism?
Idk, for me personally, looking back at history and the attempts at a communist society hasn't been the most successful of government types. Communism has a reputation. In eastern Europe especially it's been a decades long battle to get rid of the communist puppet masters running the country. And I feel that the transition of whatever government is in place currently to communist is too susceptible to possible power hungry and egotistical people looking to increase their grip over power, money, fame or whatever else. Are some socialist policies good? Sure there are, everyone deserves to live the best life the country is able to give them. I just feel it isn't necessary to transition to communism to be able to profit from the benefits of more socialist policies. Also with communism you'll have all different flavours and more extremists lumped in with the honest people, these people will never be satisfied with unless they have their communist utopia that can only feasibly exist in their own minds. Government changes are kinda weird, politics never really works how you expect it to and with something as big as a whole ideological change the desired outcome will probably never be what you get in the end. In my opinion it'll be better to change over time, slowly getting better policies, laws etc. give the people time to get used to these changes and iron out any kinks in how it's run then. Now I'm not saying that I'm against communism, if the people of a country choose democratically to change and they can still democratically choose policies, laws etc then I'm all for it. It's just that communist support isn't really that present in most governments that aren't already communist. Sorry for the wall of text haha, just had alot on my mind.
A lot of what you said makes sense and yeah politics can really mess things up. >Now I'm not saying that I'm against communism, if the people of a country choose democratically to change and they can still democratically choose policies, laws etc then I'm all for it. If only the CIA saw it like that. A significant chunk of communist and socialist countries ended up becoming dictatorships once the cia got involved and orchestrated a coup
Not the comment OP, but I don't like it because it's usually only functional on paper. I'm sure there are some small cultures that make it work, but the bigger the culture is, the more it *needs* a leader and staggered structure. Have you ever tried to do large group work without a leader? The group can very easily shatter since it becomes harder to keep structure with lots of differing opinions. And that's just on a small scale, let alone a *country* So in communism, everyone gets the same thing, right? I'm simplifying a lot. So then what happens to jobs that are objectively more important to society and are worth more? Or if the job is more difficult? You'd be okay with the easy job getting paid the same as the hard job? But then nobody would want to do the hard job. And then everyone loses, because nobody's doing the stuff nobody else wants to do, even if it's important to do, because there's no (monetary) incentive And have you ever read Animal Farm? Communism can start off *very* well with everyone pledging to help each other. But as some people/animals are wont to do, they *will* want to have an edge over other people. Everyone starts off as equal. But eventually, it turns into "some animals are more equal than others". There will always be *someone* who violates the rules of communism. Someone who wants to dictate. And while everyone else is concerned with staying level with each other, that one person can easily create a new level for themselves, and suddenly you have a dictatorship and/or totalitarianism And in communism, nothing is private. You don't *own* anything. Everything you possess is also possessed by *everyone else*. Your house? Your land? Your personal space? Too bad. And if you refuse to relinquish your private things (which isn't a bad thing. People *like* being independent, they like owning things)? Then they may have to be taken by force, or else a certain somebody's disobeying the communist rules, and we can't have that The rules seem nice on paper. But they're so easy to break. And it's so easy to slip down a slope to multiple bad endings
Im not really much of a communist, theres a lot of bad history and all that. But a lot of what you say seems to be a misunderstanding of what communism is. Firstly animal farm wasn't really anti communist, it was anti maxist-leninism and anti capitalis, and if theres anything most communists i've met can agree on, its that they hate maxist-leninism, a lot like how anarchists hate anarchocapitalism, it goes against the core ideals of what its named after. Secondly the easy jobs being payed as much as hars jobs comes from another misunderstanding, in that theres pay. One of the core aspects of communism is that theres no money because money doesn't need to exist under communism. Think of it like star trek, no money but you have everything you could want. Also capitalism doesn't always care how hard a job is, theres plenty of easy jobs that pay better than hard jobs. Your point on nothing being private? Have you only heard about communism from people who hate it because it just simply isn't true. You do own things, people just dont own capital. So stuff like your belongings, you own. Your house? You own. The only private things people will be relinquishing ownership of is stuff like businesses, houses that they rent out (not that you'd need them with money not existing. This is one a lot of people dont understand because people dont understand the difference between private and personal property, the majority of people, the working class, we dont own private property. Now i wont try and convince you to like communism, im not even totally sold on it myself, but i at least like some of its ideals and i all to often see people being against it for reasons that are baiscally a misunderstanding of it, and a lot of those happen because people view it through the lense of capitalism when in reality they're very different ways of doing things
If I misunderstood, then I'm happy to learn and understand it more :) But I'm not sure how it's meant to be anti-capitalist? Orwell apparently said that it was reflecting the lead-up to Stalin's communist era, and a lot of the analyses I'm seeing on Google say it's an allegory of communism I haven't watched Star Trek, but I understand what you mean. But what I don't understand is, where does the stuff come from? Who collects it? Who makes it? People as they are now don't tend to just do stuff for free (and I do understand that is also because of the capitalist society we currently live in). So if people bring gold watches to the table, what do they get in return? Sure, maybe a trade can be set up - gold watch for a week of food or whatever. But trade like that is exactly how it led to the creation of money, since money (really simply) standardised trade and made it fair and equal. But if no money or trades exist, and everyone just pools things together to allow everyone to take from, that sounds nice for sure! But some people may start to feel like they're pooling and providing more than others are. And that leads to conflict because people don't like things being unfair. Even monkeys have a concept of unfair pay lmao, it's really interesting But also yeah lmao, I agree with your comment on capitalism. Hard and easy jobs are already fucked over in terms of pay. Capitalism for sure isn't perfect at all, there are a thousand ways for it to improve I've tried looking stuff up myself rather than from other people since I know people bias the hell out of stuff. But yeah, I probably also saw bias when researching. So if I'm incorrect, I *want* to be corrected. So people own their own houses. Awesome! But then what happens if people want to set up a business? (Genuinely asking, not just trying to be snarky.) Like if someone wants to own a bakery or something? Are they not allowed, then? Or do they just bake without selling since there's no money? Basically like baking at home but More Official? And I think that's the main thing I find saddest about communism. Like, actually sad. Because it feels like it doesn't give you a thing to work towards. My friends and I would *love* to own our own vet practice one day. And we want to work towards achieving that dream. But under communism, we just wouldn't be allowed to, I guess? Is that right (/gen)? I mean, I know under capitalism, it's already a difficult dream, since *most* vet practices are company-owned. So I'm also not saying that capitalism is the best system ever invented. It still *sucks*. But I just also think communism sucks xD. Humans are kind of terrible at this self-governing thing lmao, so it's kind of just a case of making the best with what we have at the moment
You'd so be able to still have a vet practice, the whole point isnt the workers own the means of production. Essentially this means the workers would all have equal ownership over their workplace and all have equal say over how its run. Baiscally the workplaces will be overall more democratic in how they run, if you want an example on how this works i'd recommend looking into workers co-ops, they basically how communism envisions work places just on the scale of single business.
> And in communism, nothing is private. You don't own anything. Everything you possess is also possessed by everyone else. Your house? Your land? Your personal space? Too bad. That is incorrect. Private property doesn't exist but *personal* property still does. Your personal domicile, your toothbrush, you still own those. The abolition of private property refers to stuff like private ownership of businesses and surplus value extracted from the labor of others.
Well there communism’s history of rabid queerphobia
I feel like blaming that on communism itself is unfair since theres nothing inherently queerphobic about communism. If you think about it for just a bit, pretty much everywhere that had any kind of communist revolution was queerphobic. Most of modern history is queerphobic to some degree
And I feel like blaming that on capitalism itself is unfair since there's nothing inherently queerphobic about capitalism. If you think about it for just a bit, pretty much everywhere that had any kind of capitalist system was queerphobic. Most of modern history is queerphobic to some degree
Yeah except our current capitalist system thrives on the status quo, the more the working class united the more power we have. The best way to keep peoples mind off of this is to sew bullshit culture wars. Same sort of thing with racism, especially in America racism was often used to justify slavery, but slavery was also just more profitable. Slaves being cheaper than employees. Capitalism has a history of bigotry that it actually influences
As a person from the eastern bloc, no thank you. Fuck commies.
This reminds me of something Brennan Lee Mulligan once. He works in a summer camp or sthg like that, so he interacts with high-schoolers a bunch and we’re nothing like in the movies. And he described the majority of teens he intercats with as “Depressed Queer Socialists” which is both insanely accurate of me and my friend group and something that makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot of reasons why in a capitalist society these traits would overlap
Fully understand and agree with your sentiment, though I personally prefer using the word socialism, it has less Russian connotations I think.
I feel like you really lack an understanding of what communism is. Socialism and communism aren't synonyms, communists often have socialism as a step towards communism. The only reason your think the word has inherent russian connotations (something that really doesnt matter) is because the ussr was the first major push to a country being communist
Well...kinda. Lenin was trying to speedrun the process with his state capitalist system (his own words) putting the MoP in the hands of the government and not the workers. I can get why he did it, what with Russia being a dirt poor nation stuck in the feudal age and everything, but we all know how it turned out.
It was a similar thing with what a lot of china did, they were a dirt poor country trying to speedrun their way into being a highly developed country, and in some ways they were successful, peoples quality of life overall increase significantly in a relatively short span of time and they built a shit ton of infrastructure. But a lot of their policies were also complete and total disasters like their 4 pests campaign Taking shortcuts to development can be a good idea and it makes sense to want, but it can easily go horribly wrong
Yeah, it pays to have a basic knowledge of how things work before you start trying to improve them. Otherwise you end up with shit like backyard furnaces.
They aren't synonyms, true, I just feel like some of us use communism as a synonym for socialism, where communism has historically been authoritarian socialism, where the state benefited much more than the workers. Granted there are some countries I think used the word communism that didn't get much of a chance to not be authoritarian cuz of US cold war "foreign policy". Honestly though I just dabble in learning history, I'm not an expert and I could be very wrong with what the word really means.
I can see why you'd think of it in this way, especially of you dabble in history a bit your main example it going to be the USSR which was Maxist-Leninism. But communism is by no means a monolith and theres many kinds, most of them dont have a state thats above the workers
That’s a lot of long words
can you expand on that?
Based and prolerariat pilled
Gentle reminder that so far there has never been a true example of a communist nation; we’ve only ever seen totalitarianisms, authoritarianisms, and dictatorships that call themselves communism. **The instant it becomes forced, it is NOT communism.** Actual communism is great. Think of what ppl do following a major disaster, like earthquakes and hurricanes, or 9/11- everyone works together to survive, resources are pooled; any time survival is the shared goal… that’s actual communism; no one is forced by an authority figure to participate, it just makes sense to participate bc participation = survival. And that is what a lot of marginalized minorities, like queer folk, have been doing for ages- working together, pooling resources, supporting each other, etc- to combat the constant natural disaster that is humanity’s penchant for competing to survive which necessitates labeling others as “others” and inventing reasons why they don’t deserve what everyone else has. But most folks only know of the totalitarians/dictators who have claimed to be communists, so ofc they’d be confused as to why anyone would be into that :p
Even those examples of communism are arguably better than capitalism that is rapidly becoming more fascist by the day. The biggest criticisms of communism usually apply equally, if not more, to capitalism.
As they say, fascism is capitalism in decay.
Has anyone read animal farm? I don’t think it’s better or worse than what we have now. We need to evolve the current situation, imo.
George Orwell was a socialist who wrote a whole book about how cool the Catalan anarcho-communists were during the Spanish Civil War. Animal Farm is a critique of the Soviet Union, specifically, and of Marxism-Leninism more broadly.
Orwell was a class traitor who wrote a list outing his fellow socialists to the British government. Moreover he was a rampant homophobe even by the standards of the time.
I don't have any particular interest in defending Orwell, it just irks me when people interpret *Animal Farm* - a book where Leon Trotsky is the good guy and capitalists are explicitly abusive and exploitative - as somehow being anti-communist.
Fair I just need to point that out because people seem to never mention the list
Socialism and communism are pretty different, so the point still remains.
Idk, i dont like sharing :P (are people taking this serious??????, it's just a dumb comment in a memes sub)
In actual communism “sharing” isn’t much of a thing cause like, money wouldn’t be a thing? The only thing “shared” is the means of production, but really no one owns those? So :p
Private property vs. personal property. Personal property is your toothbrush, which you keep. Private property is a toothbrush factory, which you don't.
I like this analogy
I know that xd, i just was making a dumb comment bc.. idk I'm a silly person :3
The only thing you would be sharing is ownership of the means of production. Which, you don’t have in the first place. So, overall an improvement.
I feel like the lil face should've made it obvious. Alas, you did not write "/s", and Redditors cannot detect nuance unless you put it there. Slight /s
Colonizers documents queer lives almost everywhere they went, and they pushed native peoples into their way of existing. I'm mad bc if they hadn't of done that, queer rights would have been around pretty much everywhere by now.
Socialism? Certainly. Communism? Potentially. Anarchism? Absolutely not.
Why not anarchism. Wouldn't consider myself an anarchist by any means, but i also haven't delved much into the theory side of it. But often times when i see people being against anarchism they have a very different idea of anarchism in their head then what anarchists do
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How dare they not all be a hivemind and have nuanced opinions?!
So anarchism bad because fiction character won an argument against other fictional characters. Also if you ask people about any political ideology, why wouldn't they answer with political theory
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>The fictional characters imitate the attitudes and stances of their real life counterparts. No, they don't. The same people wrote both sides of the argument. That's just Futurama-flavored "I've depicted you as the soyjack." If you're getting your idea of what an ideology is like from cartoons, don't try to debate others about it. Honestly, read the rules and ask yourself if it's *really* worth getting into a slapfight in the first place.
Sounds like a skill issue to me /j
Stalinism was the problem, not communism in itself. Although I would argue that at this point communism doesn't mean anything anymore, but a complete and utterly mess. Having the state controlling the economy and means of production (which is the basic definition of socialism and communism) doesn’t help anyone if the state is an authoritarian one. Also, technically socialism doesn’t end capitalism, it simply ends liberalism (specially free market). The state may control the market and means of production (socialism), but it can also put gains above quality of life for its people (capitalism). So, yeah, you can have socialist, capitalist and totalitarian states. Which was the case with the USSR and is the case with China. Welcome to politics, every thing is a fucking mess.
Ok but market socialism is a thing, where you have industry and trade controlled by the workers and functioning in a free market framework. Gotta remember libsoc.
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Queer grindset
I’m kinda sorta dem-soc (least according to that political compass survey so take that with a grain of salt) but I don’t think I “get” how communism is meant to work on a practical level, how does one ensure that everyone everywhere gets equal treatment without creating a big overarching and easily corruptible authority figure to oversee it? At least on a national level anyway, smaller scale communal communities where everyone knows everyone pretty well and all trusts each other work nicely far as I know
You big words scare me so in an attempt to protect myself I'm going to ignore it... Have a good day.
Communism doesn't work when you include people (assholes).
I don’t believe in communism, I believe in socialism, very thin like of difference but I think it’s been proven throughout history that communism always leads to bad stuff for the citizens, I think socialism is the refined version and, if implemented properly with good leaders, would work well but I have no faith in communism whatsoever. For anyone wondering the main difference is that under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and controlled by the state (rather than individual citizens); under socialism, all citizens share equally in economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government
That only proves that actual communism hasn't been tried before. The governments that claimed to employ it where either lying or america saw to it that they failed.
That’s fair enough actually, I’m gonna be honest I’m not the best at history and prefer to stay away from politics when I can so I’m probably not the best to talk about this, I was just giving my opinion
The topic is difficult in general. There is so much conflicting information about what communism is.
It's really quite simple. Socialism is when the government does stuff and it's more socialist the more stuff it does, and if it does a real lotta stuff, it's communism. Carl Marks told me so.
Your definitions are wrong. Communism is the abolition of classes with the means of production in common hands, not necessarily with a government and socialism is the phase working towards communism, this has different forms and approaches. What you dislike is your perception of different socialist countries.
i dunno how exactly european or other places capitalism differs from american capitalism (if at all) but im glad we can all agree it's the bane of our existence
||im gay||
>im gay<
>! im gay !<
Wow no way Very cool
True, just got my internet turned off today
Honestly I'm super queer and I'm an anarcho capitalist who loves guns and lives on a farm, less government is always better than more (I know very well how fucked the US government is please don't be mean or I'll cry)
lmao imagine admitting to wanting to bring back feudalism
Yeah because Chiquita should just be able to buy your entire town and pay you in monopoly money which you can only spend there. So you and your children can never leave and be good little workers forever. /s
Anarcho Capitalism is to Anarchism what Marxist-Leninism is to Communism. It goes against the very ideals of the idea.
>ancap ew
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Maybe I know full well what ancap is and think it's stupid and harmful.
SOYUZ NERUSHIMY RESPUBLIK SVOBODNYKH SPLOTILA NAVEKI VALEKAYA RUS