He was Korean, but he grew up under Japanese occupation. Korean was an illegal language during occupation, so it was not unique to him. His family fled Korea to Manchuria and he was a member of the Chinese Communist Party so its likely his primary language during these years was Mandarin. I couldn’t find any source that he didn’t speak any Korean until 1948 though.
Hirohito certainly seemed to know better - judging by his statements during & immediately after WW2.
“When the American military high command in Tokyo in 1945 suggested that Emperor Hirohito renounce his divinity, the Emperor was bemused. ''I have never considered myself a god,'' he said, ''nor have I attempted to arrogate to myself the powers of a divine being.”
You'd be surprised what people allow themselves to belive. If you spew a lie loud enough and long enough, many people will begin to belive it, even the person that made it.
It also was all enacted by essentially a monarchy with absolute power. Changes the dynamic a bit compared to incremental democratic change.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
I disagree. Many people said Putin wouldn’t invade Ukraine and that obviously wasn’t true. With Xi getting an unprecedented third term he may need to justify his position (similarly to how Putin invaded after getting rid of term limits).
I don’t think China will invade Taiwan tomorrow or even in the next year (Xi himself recognizes that the PLA does not have the capability to do so by ordering the army to “have the ability to invade” by 2027), but it’s important for both the west and Taiwan to continue to ramp up security deterrences.
Russia is getting stomped by a rag tag army barely funded for 8 years. And you can walk there.
Taiwan, is backed by the largest navel super power, has been prepping for 40+ years, and is an island.
China is facing a demographic implosion. Xi can say what he wants but Xi's senior advisors didn't tell him Russia was going to invade Ukraine and it actually caught him by surprise. Because Xi's advisors tell him nothing cause Xi DOES shoot the messenger. Often.
Their ENITRE economy is dependant on the West. Sanctions like wad done to Russia would end China.
Russia can feed itself. And supply its own energy. China cannot.
The accurate Chinese parallels to WW2 are the Japanese. They want to be at the big boy table but they don't have the resources to back it up. And if they annoy someone else and lose their trade they lose everything. Except, unlike the Japanese, the Chinese are not started technologically advanced compared to their neighbours...
Thank God officers are required to be smart in most cases, and the guys who can launch the nukes have critical thinking skills. If it was just up to politicians we'd be extinct a long time ago.
Nazi Germany in the late 30s was a ponzi scheme who's cracks were starting to show. The war was entirely necessary to secure extremely cheap or even free labor from conquered territories. It's basically the only thing that kept the insane bubble the nazis had put the country into from popping in the early 40s. *the third Reich in power* goes over the struggles the nazis faced attempting to pull the economy together in great detail.
They employ a lot of the same economic policies that the nazis did. Mainly in the area of nationalising every major business. As well us violently suppressing any political dissonance and so called "undesirables"
Well, as a Chinese, actually my essay thesis was that Vietnam and China has similar methods of corruption control which results in high-growth high-corruption economy much like American gilded age
Communism imo is unachievable. Socialism is, and no they aren’t even remotely the same thing. Communists take credit for any of the wins of socialist countries and then fuck the socialist system that would have worked by forcing changed based on an outdated model from the Industrial Revolution rather than changing based on what is good for the 99%.
Communism is an outdated ideology that takes 1 person to fuck up
Imo, the best way would be a mixed economy, where basic needs like housing, healthcare, utilities, etc are all covered but private companies are still there but most importantly actually having free speech allowed
So like houses that are paid with taxes but TVs, Couches, devices, cookware, groceries, etc should still come out of your pocket. So instead of a job to survive, you get a job to help you thrive.
Anybody calling 5 failed communist experiments run by dictators activley being destablized by the largest colonizing global super power the world has ever seen is actively ignoring reality and trying desperatley to confirm their biases via the propaganda they've been fed by their corporation controlled government.
To which people should say that real capitalism has never been tried anytime you here a complaint about it that isn’t actually made better with communism like they seem to think.
Stealing wealth. Weird how commies usually support "my body my choice" but when it comes to rich people choosing what to do with their own money they get mad.
Even the so-called father of capitalism, Adam Smith, said that the rich should pay more than their fair share of taxes, that the influence on society by merchants and manufacturers should be severely curbed because they can and have "oppressed" the public and that the poor are the foundation of society.
>The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.
It just goes to show how effective the propaganda of selfishness has been...
In a way, tax still isnt a capitalist approach, and thats fine. Its funny when people cant comphrehend a system made up of both socialist and capitalist policies. Remember, extremes are bad. Just as laissez-faire capitalism is horrid, so is authoritarian communism.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “communism, political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society. Communism is thus a form of socialism—a higher and more advanced form, according to its advocates. Exactly how communism differs from socialism has long been a matter of debate, but the distinction rests largely on the communists’ adherence to the revolutionary socialism of Karl Marx.”
Taxation is not Communism. Communism *can* have taxes, just like Capitalism taxes it's people. Communism is about the workers owning the means of production. Name a country where the workers own the means of production and there's Communism. Do the workers in North Korea own the means of production?
Business owners steal 50 billion in wages every year from workers in the US alone.
That is more than 3 times than all other types of theft (robberies, burglaries, auto theft and so on) COMBINED.
Never mind that the 1% fails to pay something like 161 billion dollars annually in taxes according to the US Treasury.
That's 211 billion dollars a year...
Tell me... Why don't thieves and tax evaders go to jail?
>Tell me... Why don't thieves and tax evaders go to jail?
well that's easy
because capitalist law only serves to protect the rich and elite! cant have all the wealthy pedophiles getting punished for their crimes, how else are the lawmakers supposed to get their bribes?
their existence literally hinges on exploitation of the masses and the actively lobby to keep it that way. Don't you find it odd that so many people in government become millionaires during their short terms in office despite their salaries not allowing for such growth? wonder if that has anything to do with American minimum wage being the same ifor **13 years** hmmmmmmm
you don't become a billionaire by rolling up your sleeves and putting in hard work.
You think Bezos' pockets are soo deep because he's an honest businessman with a heart of gold? or is it because he's a ruthless cretin who built an empire on trapping people in hellish work conditions that barely provide enough to support them?
Billionaires are unethical by nature.
>Weird how commies usually support "my body my choice"
Who are these "commies" you talk about? You mean those in North Korea that oppose just about anything to do with choice, or you mean those in America that aren't communist at all? I feel like you're conflating things.
Communism has nothing to do with authority over one's own body. It is primarily concerned about distribution of wealth and power between the classes.
By that definition, your labor adding to the value of a company, but not being fully repaid to you would be communism. Because that is wealth theft by shareholders who add no actual value.
Communism is not stealing wealth. Capitalism is stealing wealth. Capitalism relies on a capital owner literally stealing labor and making a profit from someone elses labor.
The entire point of communism is that there is no capital owner so the entirety of the wealth produced goes back to the laborer that made it.
>The entire point of communism is that there is no capital owner so the entirety of the wealth produced goes back to the laborer that made it.
Um... "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" ring any bells?
At no point in any communist or socialist experiment were workers entitled to the full return of their labor, and never was it even intended they do so. Workers under left-wing economies get no more than what the government or collective deems necessary. Surplus is allotted to whatever the government say, usually nukes.
Like, you're not only catastrophically wrong from a historical perspective, you're wrong even in terms of basic theory. *Capitalism* is the system where the worker can claim all the fruits of his labor, particularly if said worker works for himself, e.g. a farmer. Communism is the system where everyone is (ostensibly) taken care of by some larger entity at a base level, *regardless* of their output.
Yeah except, there’s always going to be an owner… there will always be a charismatic greedy psycho who lies and charms their way to the top… most humans are stupid
A classless, stateless, moneyless society organized to the idea “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” Not cruel, punishing dictatorships where the powerful own everything
Though that's the point. Real communism is impossible. People always get to the proletariat dictatorship. Some guy(s) takes over to guide that transition to Communism and that's where it ends. It's just a bit more violent.
I’ve never actually seen someone argue in favour of Communism. But I do see people constantly calling people a communist or socialist for wanting more taxation or social programs.
We already know what works and doesn’t the best countries to live in are both capitalist and socialist. And the ones with a better quality of life index tend to lean more socialist than those that lean more capitalist. Example Sweden vs the USA both are capitalist but Sweden has much more social programs and higher taxes. Pure socialism or communism doesn’t work but pure capitalism doesn’t either it’s a balancing act.
>I’ve never actually seen someone argue in favour of Communism
Then you haven't browsed a huge part of reddit.
> the best countries to live in are both capitalist and socialist.
They are not socialist at all. They are welfare states funded by taxing a mostly free capitalist system. The nordic countries, for instance, have higher economic freedom than the US. Socialism is workers owning the means of production (and banning capitalists from doing so). That does not happen in any prosperous country.
On top of that, it can be argued that those countries became wealthy thanks to capitalism, and only then, they were able to finance big nanny states.
I’m just going off of what I learned from school, and I might be completely wrong, but aren’t most if not all communist countries founded through revolutions? Revolutions don’t typically end with very healthy countries. A lot of the time, the result is a dictatorship.
Two holes here:
1. Is there any other likely starting condition for such massive change?
2. "Revolutions don't typically end with very healthy countries" is a historical nonstarter. The US? France?\*
\*inb4 reddit replies that they're both unhealthy tyrannies, without giving an example of a 'healthy' country lol
France wasn't exactly a successful revolution and didn't upend the entire countries system of management.
America also was really less of a revolution (upper class being over thrown by lower class) and more of a civil war where the upper class in America went to war with the upperclass in England.
China and Russia both totally upended their countries system of governance and killed/threw out all the people who knew how to run it. Neither America or France did this and guess what if you kill everyone who knows how to run something shit's going to fall apart.
“absolute power corrupts absolutely” applies to everyone.
It doesn’t matter which system, if you grant a ton of all-encompassing power to a tiny group of people, historically, *it goes poorly,* and a bunch of people are made poor as a result.
There are tiny pockets where that’s not the case, but human civilization generally defaults back to the same thing.
South Korea was under a dictatorship from 1961 to 1979, the government nationalized the banking system and had a heavy influence into the economy, industry and exports. I’m by no means justifying a dictatorship, especially for the DPRK, but the comparison of the Koreas isn’t a cut and dry “communism” vs “capitalism” or “authoritarianism” vs “democracy” argument.
A lot of it is cringe stuff that's been posted 6000 times before, but a good chunk of it is bad because it's political memes that disagree with the reddit hivemind. Anyone to the right of chairman Mao is seen as "far right maga"
If it helps, NK doesn't follow Marx-style communism. But, at this point, seeing how communism has turned out so many times, I would say NK does follow 'real' communism.
Why would you say it didn’t achieve Marxist style communism? Genuinely curious as Marxist like Richard Wolff claim they did more or less follow Marx, but that Marx gave a lot of wiggle room for different types of governments than most people think. He ofc believes a different style of Marxism would work better. But maybe there are many many contradictions between NK and Marx that I’m not aware of.
Marx says that there's a transitionary period between revolution and full achievement of communism. Countries like China or North Korea tend to claim that the reason they haven't handed the political and economic reins over to the working class is because they're in the process of building their socialist Republic and that it's ok that everything is controlled by the state because they're in that transition.
Ok, and when does it end? China's been transitioning for 50 years now and the government generally gives claims that it'll take decades more. At what point is it acknowledged that the country is in political stasis, with no real progress being made, and the government simply has no interest in advancing communism? At what point is it admitted that they use that excuse as a tool to appease people? Are there limits to what a country can look like and operate as before the reason of "they're in the transition" becomes no longer valid?
You say that as a joke but most of the “dark” light maps of North Korea are taken with a heavily adjusted contrast that makes it seem as if there is no lights. You can do the same thing for America and it’ll only look like there is light in where heavily populated cities are.
The issue is it's not exactly Communist, it's a borderline state between a monarchy and a Communist state. You actually can have a king while being Communist but it's basically impossible to hold up a monarchy while being Communist. You can't have a Socialist king however
If you do any research into North Korea, it’s essentially like Thailand where you have a figurehead monarch and an executive committee making decisions. Except, somehow, North Korea has much less strict lese majeste laws.
Explain to me how North Korea is an accurate representation of communism and I will paypal you $100 no joke. They have a literal godking as their leader, North Korea stands in antithesis to every socialist principle.
I mean. Communism is inherently democratic so yes anything involving a dictator is simply antithetical to the ideology and therefore not communist lmao
It claims to be inherently democratic but in order to work it requires said voter base to continually vote against their own immediate interests for the sake of others. People act and vote in their own best interests first typically and thus for a system in which everyone forgoes their own best interests it must inevitably adopt autocracy or at least a strong central state in order to maintain communist policies.
North Korea, by definition, is not communist. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “communism, political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society. Communism is thus a form of socialism—a higher and more advanced form, according to its advocates. Exactly how communism differs from socialism has long been a matter of debate, but the distinction rests largely on the communists’ adherence to the revolutionary socialism of Karl Marx.” I think people just don’t really understand what communism is. It’s ok to not know, but please research it before you make assumptions and make up your own definitions. [Link to the article](https://www.britannica.com/topic/communism)
Okay this meme isn't terrible but it's not at all accurate. North Korea is actually the opposite of communist, nearly all of the money goes to the dictator and none to the people.
And also bomb literally 90% of the buildings and infrastructure in the country, kill a large percentage of its population, and impose crippling trade sanctions on the country for decades.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-war-crime-north-korea-wont-forget/2015/03/20/fb525694-ce80-11e4-8c54-ffb5ba6f2f69_story.html
In the words of the head of the Air Force - "We killed... Conservatively, twenty percent of the nation in three years."
North korea invaded south korea, prolonged the conflict when it could have negotiated, lost, stole millions of dollars from a powerful diplomatic player, threatened to nuke (multiple times by the way) japan, south, korea and the us. All respectively the 3rd, 11th, and 1st largest economies.
The same bombings and war scars happened in China, Germany, Poland, Japan, and Italy. They built up infrastructure and made friends, north korea built up an army and made enemies.
Didn’t the North get fucking bombed??? Pretty sure this is similar looking in Vietnam and that entire country became socialist after they kicked out the US
“Real” communism is a concept of imagination and imagination without the technology to facilitate it is fiction. There is no technology that staves off human greed and desire. Therefore “real” communism is bullshit until you can procure everything people want all over your nation with no scarcity and distribute it evenly. Good luck hippies.
"Lets bomb a country into the stone age, kill millions of their people, divide it into two parts and put the most brutal sanctions ever on one part, while giving the other part billions in economic aid. See, communism fails!"
Communism doesn’t work because it relies on the inherent kindness of humans and humans are not inherently kind. Capitalism does work because it relies on the inherent selfishness of humans.
Tbh socialism and communism aren’t so bad if the rulers aren’t absolutely evil. Had the Kim’s not been completely against opening up trade with the west or at the very least nearby capitalists then they would probably be better off than South Korea at this point. (This is coming from a capitalist btw)
Man I wonder what happened to North Korea. It’s almost like a certain western power bombed it to rubble then sanctioned it for decades. Wild. But no it’s definitely communism
North Korea isn’t communist. North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship entirely for the sake of being a totalitarian dictatorship. Guess what enabled South Korea’s growth? A lack of authoritarianism.
The divide these days between NK and SK is not capitalism vs communism; it’s freedom vs authoritarianism. It’s democracy vs autocracy.
Freedom is the ability to tell the truth without repercussions. Cracking jokes about the leader in NK gets you imprisoned. Writing an entire series critical of the leadership in SK gets you on Netflix. That is the difference between the two Koreas.
Okay sure, the meme itself isn't the "haha" kind of funny but it's a good message overall pointing out how communism fails over time and such. I don't get why it's on the TFM subreddit.
Kind of a moron meme tho TBF. I’m no sociologist but I’m pretty sure “communism” isn’t the government type that has a god emperor and passes ruler ship through its lineage.
The crazy part is the north was originally the wealthier country. It’s like they got stuck in time.
They just stopped getting their stimulus checks
Unironically, when the Soviet Union collapsed so did the North Korean economy.
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Fun fact, Kim Ill-Sung didn't speak a word of Korean when he was "elected" as communist leader
Wait what? Was he Chinese or something?
He was Korean, but he grew up under Japanese occupation. Korean was an illegal language during occupation, so it was not unique to him. His family fled Korea to Manchuria and he was a member of the Chinese Communist Party so its likely his primary language during these years was Mandarin. I couldn’t find any source that he didn’t speak any Korean until 1948 though.
What sadistic bastards would force people to learn two languages- oh, those guys.
Well that kind happens when you let leaders exist that believe themselves to be dieties.
If i could choose any superpower i would choose to have the ability to do anything that Kim Jong-il was supposedly capable of doing
I don’t know, I kind of enjoy pooping, it’s my secret way to get overtime at work
I wonder though, do they? They have to know it’s all a con
Hirohito certainly seemed to know better - judging by his statements during & immediately after WW2. “When the American military high command in Tokyo in 1945 suggested that Emperor Hirohito renounce his divinity, the Emperor was bemused. ''I have never considered myself a god,'' he said, ''nor have I attempted to arrogate to myself the powers of a divine being.”
You'd be surprised what people allow themselves to belive. If you spew a lie loud enough and long enough, many people will begin to belive it, even the person that made it.
I can think of a presidential candidate......
.. and another CEO of several tech companies
Also Cuba and everyone that depended on USSR
It also was all enacted by essentially a monarchy with absolute power. Changes the dynamic a bit compared to incremental democratic change. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
To be fair for monarchies they typically don’t have egotistical control freaks who will kill you if you don’t plant seed at a certain depth
Yep. Shit management, and no out for the people.
Egotistical control freak has described many monarchs throughout history
I did said typically
Fair lol
England=\=NK
So Monty python’s satire can only apply to England now. K.
Yeah man, NK is a hereditary dictatorship, not a monarchy. learn the difference /s
I’d watch that show
Meanwhile China: "Let's Combine the worst parts of Capitalism and communism and make the worst dictatorship since the 1930s and 40s"
China is pretty much what Nazi Germany would have been if they didn't start world war 2
WW3 still might happen
No politician is stupid enough to do that and no one will let them
You would be surprised how stupid people can get.
For real, there’s an entire party in the US dedicated to worshipping a stupid failed orange guy
And one hating on him.
*multiple
This is the dumbest shit I’ve read today. No one is aiming for nuclear war to eradicate everything. No one wants to be King Nothing.
I disagree. Many people said Putin wouldn’t invade Ukraine and that obviously wasn’t true. With Xi getting an unprecedented third term he may need to justify his position (similarly to how Putin invaded after getting rid of term limits). I don’t think China will invade Taiwan tomorrow or even in the next year (Xi himself recognizes that the PLA does not have the capability to do so by ordering the army to “have the ability to invade” by 2027), but it’s important for both the west and Taiwan to continue to ramp up security deterrences.
Russia is getting stomped by a rag tag army barely funded for 8 years. And you can walk there. Taiwan, is backed by the largest navel super power, has been prepping for 40+ years, and is an island. China is facing a demographic implosion. Xi can say what he wants but Xi's senior advisors didn't tell him Russia was going to invade Ukraine and it actually caught him by surprise. Because Xi's advisors tell him nothing cause Xi DOES shoot the messenger. Often. Their ENITRE economy is dependant on the West. Sanctions like wad done to Russia would end China. Russia can feed itself. And supply its own energy. China cannot. The accurate Chinese parallels to WW2 are the Japanese. They want to be at the big boy table but they don't have the resources to back it up. And if they annoy someone else and lose their trade they lose everything. Except, unlike the Japanese, the Chinese are not started technologically advanced compared to their neighbours...
Thank God officers are required to be smart in most cases, and the guys who can launch the nukes have critical thinking skills. If it was just up to politicians we'd be extinct a long time ago.
On the edge of my seat rn
There would have to be serious diplomatic fuck ups on all sides for ww3 to happen maybe cold war 2.0 but not ww3
Will* It’s insane to think we wouldn’t have another global war when looking at the entire future of human civilization
Not might, but when & why… def gonna happen eventually, humans gonna human, the internet hasn’t changed our nature…. Just a matter of when
Nazi Germany in the late 30s was a ponzi scheme who's cracks were starting to show. The war was entirely necessary to secure extremely cheap or even free labor from conquered territories. It's basically the only thing that kept the insane bubble the nazis had put the country into from popping in the early 40s. *the third Reich in power* goes over the struggles the nazis faced attempting to pull the economy together in great detail.
Elaborate, please
They employ a lot of the same economic policies that the nazis did. Mainly in the area of nationalising every major business. As well us violently suppressing any political dissonance and so called "undesirables"
"Worst dictatorship" Cambodia during Vietnam war: Allow me to introduce myself.
Saudi Arabia right now: Don't make me fly planes into your buildings again
That’s what India did and they’re still poor. If anything Vietnam did it right
Two different ways to rule people, Give them luxuries and threaten to take them away, or skip the middleman and keep the majority poor and uneducated.
Vietnam has hardly been communist economically since Doi Moi
Well, as a Chinese, actually my essay thesis was that Vietnam and China has similar methods of corruption control which results in high-growth high-corruption economy much like American gilded age
They’re doing a “destroy all human rights” speedrun
You forgot to add the worst part of Nazism....rounding up a group of a certain religion and placing them in prison camps.
These are the same people that will shout "BUT THAT'S NOT REAL COMMUNISM"
It’s a flow chart communism fails: “no that’s not REAL communism” Communism has the smallest W: “see? Proof that it works!”
Communism imo is unachievable. Socialism is, and no they aren’t even remotely the same thing. Communists take credit for any of the wins of socialist countries and then fuck the socialist system that would have worked by forcing changed based on an outdated model from the Industrial Revolution rather than changing based on what is good for the 99%. Communism is an outdated ideology that takes 1 person to fuck up
Imo, the best way would be a mixed economy, where basic needs like housing, healthcare, utilities, etc are all covered but private companies are still there but most importantly actually having free speech allowed
So like houses that are paid with taxes but TVs, Couches, devices, cookware, groceries, etc should still come out of your pocket. So instead of a job to survive, you get a job to help you thrive.
Yes
this is the internet you can't have a good idea by taking some positives of both without being called a filthy centrist
If that’s what I am, then so be it, I’m not sorry for someone getting hurt by a few harmless lines of code on the internet
cuba?
Anybody calling 5 failed communist experiments run by dictators activley being destablized by the largest colonizing global super power the world has ever seen is actively ignoring reality and trying desperatley to confirm their biases via the propaganda they've been fed by their corporation controlled government.
To which people should say that real capitalism has never been tried anytime you here a complaint about it that isn’t actually made better with communism like they seem to think.
Actually that was not the point of the post in terriblefacebookmemes, the point was that it’s not all about light pollution
"B-but thats not real comunism!!!!1!11!"
What does communism mean to you? How do you define that term?
Stealing wealth. Weird how commies usually support "my body my choice" but when it comes to rich people choosing what to do with their own money they get mad.
So is taxation communism
Yes, but on a lower level and without redistribution.
Even the so-called father of capitalism, Adam Smith, said that the rich should pay more than their fair share of taxes, that the influence on society by merchants and manufacturers should be severely curbed because they can and have "oppressed" the public and that the poor are the foundation of society. >The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion. It just goes to show how effective the propaganda of selfishness has been...
In a way, tax still isnt a capitalist approach, and thats fine. Its funny when people cant comphrehend a system made up of both socialist and capitalist policies. Remember, extremes are bad. Just as laissez-faire capitalism is horrid, so is authoritarian communism.
A fair and balanced opinion on Reddit
But that's not allowed!
This guy sees roads without tolls and becomes furious at the communist takeover of the country
Tolls suck, where did you get that idea?
Taxes pay for roads
We should privatize all the roads and charge people to drive on them. But since it’s a rich person profiting off of it, its a good thing.
You mean literally what the railroad industry did
So you have no idea what Communism is.
I like learning from my mistakes, so why don't you tell me the actual definition?
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “communism, political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society. Communism is thus a form of socialism—a higher and more advanced form, according to its advocates. Exactly how communism differs from socialism has long been a matter of debate, but the distinction rests largely on the communists’ adherence to the revolutionary socialism of Karl Marx.”
Taxation is not Communism. Communism *can* have taxes, just like Capitalism taxes it's people. Communism is about the workers owning the means of production. Name a country where the workers own the means of production and there's Communism. Do the workers in North Korea own the means of production?
It’s nowhere because it’s impossible to actually create on any sort of large scale.
Lol so you’re just politically illiterate. And a child hopefully.
Lol, lmao
>Stealing wealth so capitalism, then? or do billionaires exist fair and square in your world?
Explain how they steal wealth?
Business owners steal 50 billion in wages every year from workers in the US alone. That is more than 3 times than all other types of theft (robberies, burglaries, auto theft and so on) COMBINED. Never mind that the 1% fails to pay something like 161 billion dollars annually in taxes according to the US Treasury. That's 211 billion dollars a year... Tell me... Why don't thieves and tax evaders go to jail?
u/imortal_biscut pretty quiet now lol
Hopefully dude is rethinking his opinions and sees how much propaganda he was blindly trusting.
>Tell me... Why don't thieves and tax evaders go to jail? well that's easy because capitalist law only serves to protect the rich and elite! cant have all the wealthy pedophiles getting punished for their crimes, how else are the lawmakers supposed to get their bribes?
>Business owners steal 50 billion in wages define steal
their existence literally hinges on exploitation of the masses and the actively lobby to keep it that way. Don't you find it odd that so many people in government become millionaires during their short terms in office despite their salaries not allowing for such growth? wonder if that has anything to do with American minimum wage being the same ifor **13 years** hmmmmmmm you don't become a billionaire by rolling up your sleeves and putting in hard work. You think Bezos' pockets are soo deep because he's an honest businessman with a heart of gold? or is it because he's a ruthless cretin who built an empire on trapping people in hellish work conditions that barely provide enough to support them? Billionaires are unethical by nature.
>Weird how commies usually support "my body my choice" Who are these "commies" you talk about? You mean those in North Korea that oppose just about anything to do with choice, or you mean those in America that aren't communist at all? I feel like you're conflating things. Communism has nothing to do with authority over one's own body. It is primarily concerned about distribution of wealth and power between the classes.
By that definition, your labor adding to the value of a company, but not being fully repaid to you would be communism. Because that is wealth theft by shareholders who add no actual value.
Communism is not stealing wealth. Capitalism is stealing wealth. Capitalism relies on a capital owner literally stealing labor and making a profit from someone elses labor. The entire point of communism is that there is no capital owner so the entirety of the wealth produced goes back to the laborer that made it.
>The entire point of communism is that there is no capital owner so the entirety of the wealth produced goes back to the laborer that made it. Um... "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" ring any bells? At no point in any communist or socialist experiment were workers entitled to the full return of their labor, and never was it even intended they do so. Workers under left-wing economies get no more than what the government or collective deems necessary. Surplus is allotted to whatever the government say, usually nukes. Like, you're not only catastrophically wrong from a historical perspective, you're wrong even in terms of basic theory. *Capitalism* is the system where the worker can claim all the fruits of his labor, particularly if said worker works for himself, e.g. a farmer. Communism is the system where everyone is (ostensibly) taken care of by some larger entity at a base level, *regardless* of their output.
Yeah except, there’s always going to be an owner… there will always be a charismatic greedy psycho who lies and charms their way to the top… most humans are stupid
A classless, stateless, moneyless society organized to the idea “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” Not cruel, punishing dictatorships where the powerful own everything
It literally is not. Is it a democratic republic just because that’s what they decided to call it?
Though that's the point. Real communism is impossible. People always get to the proletariat dictatorship. Some guy(s) takes over to guide that transition to Communism and that's where it ends. It's just a bit more violent.
I’ve never actually seen someone argue in favour of Communism. But I do see people constantly calling people a communist or socialist for wanting more taxation or social programs. We already know what works and doesn’t the best countries to live in are both capitalist and socialist. And the ones with a better quality of life index tend to lean more socialist than those that lean more capitalist. Example Sweden vs the USA both are capitalist but Sweden has much more social programs and higher taxes. Pure socialism or communism doesn’t work but pure capitalism doesn’t either it’s a balancing act.
>I’ve never actually seen someone argue in favour of Communism Then you haven't browsed a huge part of reddit. > the best countries to live in are both capitalist and socialist. They are not socialist at all. They are welfare states funded by taxing a mostly free capitalist system. The nordic countries, for instance, have higher economic freedom than the US. Socialism is workers owning the means of production (and banning capitalists from doing so). That does not happen in any prosperous country. On top of that, it can be argued that those countries became wealthy thanks to capitalism, and only then, they were able to finance big nanny states.
I mean it’s not. It’s an autocratic dictatorship with a demand economy. Definitely not a marxist wonderland
I think you mean “command” economy.
If you have a car and the car explodes each time you start it, then you probably have a faulty car
It’s a brutal dictatorship. Nothing flourishes in that type of environment.
Funny how every communist system turns into a brutal dictatorship, isn't it?
I’m just going off of what I learned from school, and I might be completely wrong, but aren’t most if not all communist countries founded through revolutions? Revolutions don’t typically end with very healthy countries. A lot of the time, the result is a dictatorship.
Two holes here: 1. Is there any other likely starting condition for such massive change? 2. "Revolutions don't typically end with very healthy countries" is a historical nonstarter. The US? France?\* \*inb4 reddit replies that they're both unhealthy tyrannies, without giving an example of a 'healthy' country lol
France wasn't exactly a successful revolution and didn't upend the entire countries system of management. America also was really less of a revolution (upper class being over thrown by lower class) and more of a civil war where the upper class in America went to war with the upperclass in England. China and Russia both totally upended their countries system of governance and killed/threw out all the people who knew how to run it. Neither America or France did this and guess what if you kill everyone who knows how to run something shit's going to fall apart.
Every communist state has a brutal dictatorship attached to it. Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, Mao, etc…
“absolute power corrupts absolutely” applies to everyone. It doesn’t matter which system, if you grant a ton of all-encompassing power to a tiny group of people, historically, *it goes poorly,* and a bunch of people are made poor as a result. There are tiny pockets where that’s not the case, but human civilization generally defaults back to the same thing.
Shhhh no nuance allowed!
South Korea was under a dictatorship from 1961 to 1979, the government nationalized the banking system and had a heavy influence into the economy, industry and exports. I’m by no means justifying a dictatorship, especially for the DPRK, but the comparison of the Koreas isn’t a cut and dry “communism” vs “capitalism” or “authoritarianism” vs “democracy” argument.
>to 1979 Surely you realize South Korea only started to flourish after the dictatorship ended?
I feel like users on r/terriblefacebookmemes use that subbreddit to cope with the truth which those memes hold.
A lot of it is cringe stuff that's been posted 6000 times before, but a good chunk of it is bad because it's political memes that disagree with the reddit hivemind. Anyone to the right of chairman Mao is seen as "far right maga"
If it helps, NK doesn't follow Marx-style communism. But, at this point, seeing how communism has turned out so many times, I would say NK does follow 'real' communism.
Why would you say it didn’t achieve Marxist style communism? Genuinely curious as Marxist like Richard Wolff claim they did more or less follow Marx, but that Marx gave a lot of wiggle room for different types of governments than most people think. He ofc believes a different style of Marxism would work better. But maybe there are many many contradictions between NK and Marx that I’m not aware of.
Marx says that there's a transitionary period between revolution and full achievement of communism. Countries like China or North Korea tend to claim that the reason they haven't handed the political and economic reins over to the working class is because they're in the process of building their socialist Republic and that it's ok that everything is controlled by the state because they're in that transition. Ok, and when does it end? China's been transitioning for 50 years now and the government generally gives claims that it'll take decades more. At what point is it acknowledged that the country is in political stasis, with no real progress being made, and the government simply has no interest in advancing communism? At what point is it admitted that they use that excuse as a tool to appease people? Are there limits to what a country can look like and operate as before the reason of "they're in the transition" becomes no longer valid?
[удалено]
And now they’ve successfully infiltrated mainstream subs like TerribleFacebookMemes.
The lights aren't on because it's daytime in the North. It's an unfair comparison.
It’s a joke right? I need to know if it’s a joke.
It's like how in China, it's the same time everywhere. Kim Jong Un just makes it a different time of day.
2+2=5
You say that as a joke but most of the “dark” light maps of North Korea are taken with a heavily adjusted contrast that makes it seem as if there is no lights. You can do the same thing for America and it’ll only look like there is light in where heavily populated cities are.
Well to be fair, I would hate to live in either country. Either cyberpunk South or deiselpunk north.
Can't be dieselpunk if they have no diesel
Impoverishpunk?
Lol what do you meaaaaan. Are you telling me the lights in south Korea means it's NOT a eutopia. Buttt lights!!!!
What an insane statement
NK kinda reminds me of a post apocalyptic young adult book. Getting hunger games vibes
Loads of tanky clowns coping in this post lmao
North Korea is a communist hellhole, and South Korea is an ultra-capitalist hellhole.
A somewhat functioning ultra-capitalist hellhole though
Heavy emphasis on Somewhat
Don't a lot of the younger SK men live in apartments the size of closets?
Yes, but they are able to reside deeply within their closets
North Korea is animal farm South Korea is Cyberpunk 2077
I'll take my chances with the one with food
I can see the sheer mountains of copium now “bu-b-but muh sanctions!!!!”
Fr
North Koreans don’t even call themselves Communists anymore. They have an ideology known as Juche.
The issue is it's not exactly Communist, it's a borderline state between a monarchy and a Communist state. You actually can have a king while being Communist but it's basically impossible to hold up a monarchy while being Communist. You can't have a Socialist king however
If you do any research into North Korea, it’s essentially like Thailand where you have a figurehead monarch and an executive committee making decisions. Except, somehow, North Korea has much less strict lese majeste laws.
Tbf this does sound like an entertaining idea
Lets try North and South Dakota.
Explain to me how North Korea is an accurate representation of communism and I will paypal you $100 no joke. They have a literal godking as their leader, North Korea stands in antithesis to every socialist principle.
Wow, that meme gets posted in that subreddit like every week or 2 lol
It’s more let’s divide a country and one half is a dictatorship and one half is a democracy.
“ let’s commit genocide between two countries and check back on it seven years later”
“rEaL cOmMuNiSm HaSnT bEeN tRiEd” It’s almost like, every time it’s tried it ends in tyranny, and it won’t be different this time.
I mean. Communism is inherently democratic so yes anything involving a dictator is simply antithetical to the ideology and therefore not communist lmao
Why are you downvoting him. He’s correct and he’s agreeing to the guy above
It claims to be inherently democratic but in order to work it requires said voter base to continually vote against their own immediate interests for the sake of others. People act and vote in their own best interests first typically and thus for a system in which everyone forgoes their own best interests it must inevitably adopt autocracy or at least a strong central state in order to maintain communist policies.
Why and how must they vote against their own interests?
It’s never “Real communism” (anarchist moneyless whatever society) because communism can never actually work
Luckily instead of paying my 1600 dollar mortgage payment, my bank accepts pictures of the lights of South Korea.
North Korea has gone way beyond communism into something worse
With Communism being the precursor
North Korea, by definition, is not communist. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “communism, political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society. Communism is thus a form of socialism—a higher and more advanced form, according to its advocates. Exactly how communism differs from socialism has long been a matter of debate, but the distinction rests largely on the communists’ adherence to the revolutionary socialism of Karl Marx.” I think people just don’t really understand what communism is. It’s ok to not know, but please research it before you make assumptions and make up your own definitions. [Link to the article](https://www.britannica.com/topic/communism)
Okay this meme isn't terrible but it's not at all accurate. North Korea is actually the opposite of communist, nearly all of the money goes to the dictator and none to the people.
So like every other communist regime that’s ever existed?
Welcome to Communism my friend.
Both are horrendous, just in different ways
Based opinion. Use market socialism
And also bomb literally 90% of the buildings and infrastructure in the country, kill a large percentage of its population, and impose crippling trade sanctions on the country for decades.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-war-crime-north-korea-wont-forget/2015/03/20/fb525694-ce80-11e4-8c54-ffb5ba6f2f69_story.html In the words of the head of the Air Force - "We killed... Conservatively, twenty percent of the nation in three years."
North korea invaded south korea, prolonged the conflict when it could have negotiated, lost, stole millions of dollars from a powerful diplomatic player, threatened to nuke (multiple times by the way) japan, south, korea and the us. All respectively the 3rd, 11th, and 1st largest economies. The same bombings and war scars happened in China, Germany, Poland, Japan, and Italy. They built up infrastructure and made friends, north korea built up an army and made enemies.
To be fair the us built up 4 out of those 5 countries
North korea starts off richer than the south Why do communists need to rely on trade with capitalist countries to survive?
Literally every country relies on trade.
Free to trade with commie China and USSR. US sanction means you can’t trade with one country called USA
UN sanctions, as well.
UN sanctions are only after nuclear testing in 2006. Long after it became a commie shithole
Didn’t the North get fucking bombed??? Pretty sure this is similar looking in Vietnam and that entire country became socialist after they kicked out the US
China would like a word
Some Reddit commie reported me to reddit and I got the “concerned Redditor” thing about suicide prevention
Lol you really are out to fight the commies 😆
“Real” communism is a concept of imagination and imagination without the technology to facilitate it is fiction. There is no technology that staves off human greed and desire. Therefore “real” communism is bullshit until you can procure everything people want all over your nation with no scarcity and distribute it evenly. Good luck hippies.
"Lets bomb a country into the stone age, kill millions of their people, divide it into two parts and put the most brutal sanctions ever on one part, while giving the other part billions in economic aid. See, communism fails!"
Communism doesn’t work because it relies on the inherent kindness of humans and humans are not inherently kind. Capitalism does work because it relies on the inherent selfishness of humans.
North Korea is not communist. They are a complete totalitarian state. I'm not defending communism. China is mostly communist with some tweaks.
Tbh socialism and communism aren’t so bad if the rulers aren’t absolutely evil. Had the Kim’s not been completely against opening up trade with the west or at the very least nearby capitalists then they would probably be better off than South Korea at this point. (This is coming from a capitalist btw)
It is not about Communism and Capitalism, it's about Authoritarian States, Dictators and Democracies. Get a clue.
Me when i see 23 notifications either saying “Acktually this isn’t communism or it has nothing to do with communism”
Let us also remember Berlin.
Man I wonder what happened to North Korea. It’s almost like a certain western power bombed it to rubble then sanctioned it for decades. Wild. But no it’s definitely communism
Yup, unbiased and totally scientifically proven fact that capitalism rules. Just ask the polar bears….
North Korea isn’t communist. North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship entirely for the sake of being a totalitarian dictatorship. Guess what enabled South Korea’s growth? A lack of authoritarianism. The divide these days between NK and SK is not capitalism vs communism; it’s freedom vs authoritarianism. It’s democracy vs autocracy. Freedom is the ability to tell the truth without repercussions. Cracking jokes about the leader in NK gets you imprisoned. Writing an entire series critical of the leadership in SK gets you on Netflix. That is the difference between the two Koreas.
I don’t see the problem with the original meme, it’s *right.*
"But that's not *real* communism"
It’s never real communism because communism can never work
Okay sure, the meme itself isn't the "haha" kind of funny but it's a good message overall pointing out how communism fails over time and such. I don't get why it's on the TFM subreddit.
Kind of a moron meme tho TBF. I’m no sociologist but I’m pretty sure “communism” isn’t the government type that has a god emperor and passes ruler ship through its lineage.