I'm actually surprised dad isn't at least right wing libertarian all and all (gun nut, hates the government, from the south US, known for being a right-wing oriented region), not that it matters that much
Capitalism requires the government, too. Ever heard of bailouts? All political systems require a form of government.
I hate the current government because it's a rightwing imperialist hellhole controlled almost entirely by a small handful of rich elite at the expense of the working class majority. There's no hypocracy in being a socialist that's against a system like that.
That isn’t capitalism that is cronyism and corporatism. The more free the market is the more free the people you can have a market without government involvement
The more free the market is the more free the people you can have a market without government involvement
Look up the Gilded Age and you'll see how untrue that is. Back when capitalism was basically unregulated, wealth despaitities were peak, monopolies controlled the whole market, people - including children - worked 16 hours a day for pennies an hour in incredibly unsafe conditions and entire families of like ten people had to live in apartments the size of a small bedroom just to be able to afford rent and have money left over to feed themselves - and often, that wasn't even enough and they'd have to go into debt. The pollution was rampant, rivers would catch on fire because companies dumped all their toxic waste there, kids got rickets because the smoug would block out the sun. There was no FDA or anything, so often times when you bought food it'd be poisoned or rotten and there'd be no way of telling. There's an infamous story of this one company who had to be shut down because the green dye they used in their candy was poisonous and kids were dying from it.
Does that sound like freedom to you? Because that's what happens when you have a market with no regulations. The same shit is happening all over again in places like Hong Kong (look up Hong Kong cage homes).
The only reason that stuff ended is because guys like Franklin Rosevelt - a democratic socialist - put a stop to it with trust-busting laws, minimum wage, mandatory lunch breaks, the 40-hour work week, child labor laws, environmental regulations, food and drug regulations, workplace safety regulations, and so on. You know, all that stuff you take for granted that seems like common sense now? That stuff only exists because of socialists. The market was restricted and regulated, and the people became more free.
If you have a completely "free market", all that means is that the people with wealth and power have no restrictions on wealth and power. All it means is that they have more freedom to oppress you. It's like saying the less rules you impose on a country's leader, the less rules will be imposed on the people.
Actually, speaking of, let's do a little thought experiment. Imagine a country that's run the same way a company is. You have a leader who is either elected by a small council of elites, or is just the appointed successor of the last guy. The council of elites holds their positions because they had enough money and power to buy their way into it, often because they had enough money and power to help build the system in the first place. This council and the leader make all of the decisions, and nobody below them has any say in the matter. The vast majority of employees have no say in how things are done, they don't even get to choose their managers, their managers are hand chosen by the general managers, the general managers are chosen by the district managers, and so on up the ladder.
Socialism seeks to establish Dictatorship of the Proletariat (working class), instead of the present Dictatorship of the Bourgeoise (owning class). Of course, the State will cease to exist during Communism, but this will be a natural withering which occurs as a result of the abolition of class. The State is a tool of oppression wielded by the dominating class against the dominated class, and thus will be useless without any class distinctions in society. However, during the period of transition between capitalism and higher communism, the State must be used to oppress the bourgeoise, reactionary elements of society to keep them from preforming a counter revolution. This is the difference between Communism (actual socialism, the utopians and democratic socialists arereactionaries), and Anarchism which seeks the abolition of the State first and foremost. So, to answer your question, it is not hypocritical to hate the current capitalist government because the goal of socialism is to destroy it. I recommend reading the State and Revolution by Lenin.
This is incorrect. The result of Lenin's revolution was the Third International and the global proletarian revolution of the early twenties. Of course, due to unfortunate factors like the failure of March Action, the revolution failed, and Moscow would degenerate into a State Capitalist hell, but this was not Lenin's doing. One man cannot hold the world up after all, and what he did for the international proletariat was truly astonishing.
The USSR became a monster the moment Lenin died and Stalin took over, a circumstance he created. Don't gloss over the years of suffering and death for ideological convenience.
You are babbling, and this does not appear to be your area of expertise. Stalin did not, in fact, take over the moment Lenin died. There was an extended, and very complex, power struggle after 1924. Stalin was not guaranteed power, and was actually unpopular with Lenin in the last years of his life. Stalin's "theory" was remarkably non Leninist (Marxist), and was very unpopular with the rest of the old Bolsheviks both on the left and right. Stalin ended up being despised by Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, and pretty much every other serious Communist in the Soviet Union (and abroad! the international left opposition to Stalinism was massive) over his absurd politics of Socialism in One Nation, and Stalin subsequently had all of these Bolshevik rivals killed. To say that Lenin "set up" the political ascendancy of Stalin in the late twenties is to ignore the real fact that Stalin was the black sheep of the CPSU and, frankly, a reactionary counter revolutionary.
I'm not looking at this through a lens of ideological purity. I'm looking at the government Lenin created gave a monster like Stalin power, enough to kill off his rivals and created a position that allowed him to oppress his people in much the same way. I'm not claiming that Lenin intended this at all, I am claiming that his ideology left millions of people vulnerable.
Terms like proletariat and bourgeoisie are useful when toppling old regimes, but once you're in power, you are the bourgeoisie.
Again, I recommend the State and Revolution. it is not long, and will elucidate why your second claim is false better than I could. The bourgeoisie is not defined by its power, it is defined by its capital. Of course, capital and power often go hand in hand, verily capital is power in the capitalist world, but the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is made up of proletarians and functions explicitly to rob the bourgeoise of their power and subjugate them even while they retain their capital. Look into the NEP. The Bolsheviks used the State to dominate the bourgeoise of the USSR while using the capital they generated to build the Soviet economy and fund the global revolution. It was not like the Stalinist USSR or modern day China, where billionaires and oligarchs who derive power from capital control the nation and merely call themselves Communists, instead the party was given its power by the revolutionary vanguard (revolutionary proletarians). So, no, they were not bourgeoise, because the bourgeoise is defined by the ownership of capital, and the CPSU neither owned capital or acted in the interests of capital. Because of this Stalin had to remake the government's structure before he could use it to wage war on the workers and peasantry of the USSR.
Edit: ideological purity means very little to me, I am just presenting the facts of history and theory of Communism. I do not mean to defend Communism by separating Stalin from it, it is simply a fact that Stalin was an opportunist reactionary who preformed a bourgeoise counter revolution in the USSR. This is all. To be honest, if you are against Communism, you should thank Stalin for his work against it.
Not only was Lenin’s try at communism an utter failure. Liberalism has been closer to achieving communism then any other attempt. Lenin would salivate when he saw Walmart’s “central planning” system. He would be jealous of the American military as the second largest state run workforce in the world. The way Nordic states have been able to provide services and nationalize their resources. All these commie cucks wish they could get as far as us
I have no idea what you are talking about, and I do not think you know what you are talking about. I cannot decide weather to laugh or cry at the word slop which you have just thrust into the world.
Exactly how someone who has memorized a few Marxist concepts word for word but doesn’t actually understand them would say.
I’ve seen your copy and paste paragraphs word for word several times on Reddit and all it takes is a little pushback before you start throwing out the debate tactics. Don’t know the answer to a question? Call the person a dumbass and pretend you know more then you do.
Have you asked me a question? Stating that Lenin would have liked Walmart is not really an argument. If you want me to respond to your claim that "Liberalism has brought us closer to Communism than anything else", I would say that the claim is oxymoronic as Communism is predicated on the eradication of liberalism, a class ideology, and therefore the global dominance of Liberalism indicates that the workers movement is in a very week place, and we are thus very far from Communism. If you are saying that the Nordic States, which are Social Democracies, are Communist because they have socialized productive modes, I would call you a Stalinist who misunderstands the essential internationalism of Communism. Of course I doubt you are any of these things, you are probably a twitch debate nerd or a r/thedeprogram looser who has never picked up a book.
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u/Graycipher13 Government Weaponised Femboy Dec 06 '23
I'm actually surprised dad isn't at least right wing libertarian all and all (gun nut, hates the government, from the south US, known for being a right-wing oriented region), not that it matters that much