The problem with socialism
6d 15h ago by crazypeople.online/u/hamid in memes@lemmy.ml from lemmy.ml
Funnily enough the problem with capitalism is actually that eventually you run out of other people's money.
Tap for spoiler
Capitalism inherently serves to concentrate wealth since the ones with the money make the rules. As wealth disparity increases and people get poorer they can't buy as much stuff and growth dries up. Then the only way for the rich to keep getting richer is to degrade labour conditions, but that's unpopular so you need to blame a scapegoat and enact a repressive regime to enforce it. That's quite a problem, and it's one which might feel familiar to the astute reader.
Hey I recognize this happening.
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Then the only way for the rich to keep getting richer is to degrade labour conditions, but that's unpopular so you need to blame a scapegoat and enact a repressive regime to enforce it.
I didn't get this part. Please explain?
The money they collect is the money we pay them minus the money they pay us. If we can't pay them more the only way to get more is for them to pay us less. Gross simplification obviously. Then the typical strategy is to blame immigrants or Jews or whatever for the decrease in living standards, and crack down on anyone who tries to improve things.
Edit: this is sort of a meme-ified version of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall which is the real theory of how economic crises in capitalism come about and not really the same as what I'm describing here, but along some similar lines. It's worth reading about from actual scholars in detail if you're interested in that sort of thing.
Honestly? Their real plan is to get us to kill each other, and the ones who remain will be kept as slaves (for... multiple purposes). That is why the cost of living keeps increasing; we are becoming more and more violent, and after a lot of deaths, they will âcontrolâ the âchaosâ.
For anyone interested, here' a short excerpt on this point from a socialism crash course:
Unlike workers, Capitalists make their living, not by clocking in and being paid a certain fixed wage per hour, but through absentee ownership. Their wealth is earned while sleeping, playing golf, or visiting the mailbox to collect pieces of this wage theft, often in the form of stock dividends. A worker's wealth is dependent on the number of hours they can work; a Capitalist's wealth is based on how much absentee property they can accumulate, and as such can multiply infinitely. Some Capitalists earn an average worker's yearly salary in a single night's sleep.
For example, a Copper mine owner neither physically mines the copper, and (living thousands of miles away) likely delegates day-to-day operations to a hired manager. Yet, because they have a piece of paper that says they own it, they get a large cut of everything that was mined: the ultimate free lunch.
A 1983 report by England national income and expenditures found that on average, 26 minutes of every hour worked (or 43% of labor value added) by English workers across a wide range of industries went to various exploiting or unproductive groups, with workers receiving only 57% of their pre-tax productive output as wages<sup>1</sup>. In other words, at least 40% of the work you do every day is stolen by Capitalists.
Giving away 40% of your salary to the state for healthcare and welfare -> Crazy crime incredible inhumane and brutal theft
Giving away 75% of your salary to private companies who do the same things but worse and that don't even ensure you full coverage -> Amazing business Enterprise of freedom choice of Democratic democracy đ
"If you're unhappy, just work for a different company!!"
This needs that Drake meme.
"Ask people what they hate about socialism/communism and they'll describe capitalism."
The problem with capitalism is that eventually you run out of other people's money
see: Nvidia-Oracle-OpenAI bubble
The real problem with socialism is that it offends the CIA, and bad things happen to people who offend the CIA.
I also like the response âmfw Iâm in a capitalist society and have to choose between shelter and foodâ when I hear that socialism joke.
What we don't seem to ever run out of is bullshit.
Man I hate it when socialism capitalisms.
itt people who don't know who Margret Thatcher was enough to have seen this misattributed/misquoted from her before.
Norway is classic example of how country should function. The pathetic excuse by most AmeriKans, the USA is too large. F-off, you have the money, but spend it on stupid policies and shit.
Norway relies on imperialism to subsidize its safety nets.
â¤ď¸ so concise and to the point
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Lawmakers in the US had the option to spend $97B on something meaningful like addressing homelessness. That amount of money would cover housing and wrap around services for a significant portion of those affected for at least 5 years. Instead they chose to fund ICE to terrorize the USâs own communities, immigrants and citizens alike.
I get that it's a meme but 85% is delusional. If you think under socialism we could work 15% as much as we do now and maintain the same standard of living then lol, lmao, etc.
*online leftists coping and seething after food and housing don't just magically spring forth from the earth when you abolish rent-seeking
If you have a Real Job where you interact with the material world it is impossible to believe that 85% of the things you physically make or do are consumed by capitalists.
If you have a Real Job where you interact with the material world it is impossible to believe that 85% of the things you physically make or do are consumed by capitalists.
See, once I started working a "Real Job" I saw just how much surplus value was stolen, and turned to Marxist theory to make cohesive sense of it. 85% isn't an over-estimation, especially if we factor in imperialism. Workers in the imperial core are paid more and exploited less than workers in the periphery.
If you think under socialism we could work 15% as much as we do now and maintain the same standard of living then lol, lmao, etc.
We will probably all work 30-40 hours a week for the next great length of time even in socialism, but with far greater societal guarantees and a less predatory system of distribution.
The top 10% of households hold 67% of all wealth. If we assume that every worker produces roughly the same value, that implies â of value produced by the average worker is being taken.
Of course, 33% is not 15%, but I'd say it's roughly in the ballpark. And in certain cases, there are definitely workers who are exploited to that level.
Wealth is not income. You can't derive the rate of exploitation from wealth inequality.
If we assume that every worker produces roughly the same value
I mean lol again. Especially if you need to stretch as far as the top 10%. Doctors, surgeons, electricians, linemen, plumbers, veterinarians, dentists, engineers, etc are all going to be producing more than double the value of your average retail worker.
The only way to create wealth is via work, e.g., income. It's not a perfect measure, I concede, since wealth is static and can accumulate over time. However, I think we can still use it as a rough estimation of stolen income over time.
However, this source claims there is a 70% gap between wages and produced value. That roughly matches the number I gave.
That is not what that data is or says.
158 is not 30% of 285 for starters.
Total wages paid are a bit over half of gdp. 55% is notably quite a bit more than 15%. Think I had gdp from a different year than wages, still closer to accurate than 85%
*the fact that somebody completely misreading a graph and claiming it as a source is getting upvoted is about to turn me into a liberal out of embarrassment. Like damn, I guess there was negative exploitation in 1970. Neoliberals might be evil but at least they usually appreciate nuance and factuality more than ideological improv. The online left can never settle for reality, everything has to be embellished. Every injustice has to be 'yes, and'ed until society would actually fluorish under a new golden age where we all work 10 seconds per week if you just got rid of landlords.
literally feelings over facts.
Let me guess OP, you got a C- in Economics?
What makes you say that?
Because OP knows big words but doesnât understand economics.
Can you explain?
On the hopes that youâre not just being sarcastic,
Socialism fundamentally works by creating a system that taxes those who have more than others and goes to those who have less than others. Theoretically this can work forever because the tax revenue is being spent on the betterment of the society and as long as the majority of people are giving more than they receive. The problems arise when people start to take more than they give. This can happen from a number of factors like someone who pays $15,000/year into the system but then takes $1,000,000 for cancer treatment or someone who can contribute chooses not to and still receives the benefits.
In relation to the last panel, they are saying that they are giving 85% of their labor value to their boss who doesnât work. Thereâs multiple problems with this way of thinking. The first and most obvious one is the 85%, which is just an arbitrarily large number to make it feel scary. Second is the claim that the boss (and one can assume owner) doesnât do any work. Thatâs obviously not true because 99.99% (Iâm being dramatic) of owners work an equal or greater number of hours per week than the rest of the employees. And thereâs also the fact that while needing to know how every aspect of the company operates the owner is the one who takes the biggest risks and has the most at stake so it makes sense that they make more than the new hire who has no work experience. Yes, youâll have owners who take more than they âneedâ but you also have to remember that technically all costs of the company can and are taken out of the owners paycheck because the lower profit the company makes the lower the owners paycheck can be.
Hope this helps.
Not sarcastic, just a communist.
Socialism fundamentally works by creating a system that taxes those who have more than others and goes to those who have less than others.
No, it doesn't. Socialism is a mode of production and distribution based on public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy, and the working classes in control of the state. The rest of this paragraph isn't worth responding to, because it's based on a false premise.
In relation to the last panel, they are saying that they are giving 85% of their labor value to their boss who doesnât work. Thereâs multiple problems with this way of thinking. The first and most obvious one is the 85%, which is just an arbitrarily large number to make it feel scary.
Capitalists fundamentally make profits by paying workers for less than the value their labor-power creates.
Second is the claim that the boss (and one can assume owner) doesnât do any work. Thatâs obviously not true because 99.99% (Iâm being dramatic) of owners work an equal or greater number of hours per week than the rest of the employees.
Nobody is saying owners do literally no labor, just that their obscene wealth comes from stealing from workers, not from their own labor. Otherwise their wages would be about the same as any other worker at that company.
And thereâs also the fact that while needing to know how every aspect of the company operates the owner is the one who takes the biggest risks and has the most at stake so it makes sense that they make more than the new hire who has no work experience.
The biggest risk a capitalist takes is in becoming a worker. Workers risk their livelihood.
Yes, youâll have owners who take more than they âneedâ but you also have to remember that technically all costs of the company can and are taken out of the owners paycheck because the lower profit the company makes the lower the owners paycheck can be.
Sure, but their paycheck is made up of stolen surplus value to begin with.
Hope this helps!
Nobody is saying owners do literally no labor
The OP literally says "doesn't work". Is "doesn't work" not equivalent to "no labor"?
Owners do not work for a living, their incomes are not wages but a huge share of profit that comes from surplus value extraction. Doing some work here or there does not explain why their incomes are hundreds to thousands and even more times higher than workers, whose wages do vary but within a much more narrow band.
The OP says "doesn't work", not 'does work but not enough to satisfy an arbitrary threshold of "working for a living" so it doesn't count'.
Workers sell their labor-power for wages. Owners buy labor-power and raw materials, and sell the commodities created by them for a massive amount of profits. Both "do things," but workers live by selling their labor-power, not owners.
Lol, this just gets better and better. The person you're responding to and accusing of not understanding economics is someone who literally hosts the reading groups for books on economics, arguably the most definitive books on economics ever written, as well as scientific socialism and socioeconomic theory, who has read Kapital multiple times, maintains the active reading list for multiple lemmy communities, and has doubtless read more about economics this year than you have read on any topic (from See Spot Run to Harry Potter), in your entire life. But you're telling him he doesn't understand basic economics. 
Seriously, if you actually have any interest in pulling your head out of your ignorant ass and maybe growing the fuck up a little bit, go look at his reading course suggestions on economics, it's section 3, and get to reading. Twerp.
Wait, is this a bit and someone is actually playing the role of dipshit liberal know-it-all? This must be a bit and I fell for it.
Minor correction! Only read Volumes 1 and 2 of Capital, and only once each. Planning on revisiting them after I finish my current bug on dialectical materialism. But thanks for the defense!
Ah ok, my mistake. I saw you comment "Hey everyone, itâs time to come discuss Capital again!" on that reading group's first gathering for Volume 1 Chapter 1 and so assumed that meant it wasn't your "first rodeo."
I always meant that "again" as in "this week," haha. It was my first rodeo, and I wanted to use it to help push me to read it. A new person has run the Capital reading threads each year, for the past 3 years!
But youâre telling him he doesnât understand basic economics
I do, actually! Did fairly well in my economics classes, though bourgeois economics is bullshit. I have read the first 2 volumes of Capital, so I'm still no expert but certainly not a beginner.
Mate I don't think you understand them. There's a reason economist either end up being hyper capitalists or communists
Socialism fundamentally works by creating a system that taxes those who have more than others and goes to those who have less than others.
Prager-U level definition that has nothing to do with socialism.
Here's a concise definition:
Socialism : A range of social and economic systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production. It can also mean the transitional stage between capitalism and communism, sometimes referred to as the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Thatâs what I said. LOL
A BigBrain with a 5th grader's (at best) understanding of economics who has never even been exposed to the labor theory of value and who literally doesn't even know what Socialism is (confusing it with some form of Social Democracy) bursts into a room full of people who have been studying economics for years and starts explaining to them his ever so smart 5th grader's version of economics. It's so on the nose it's like a badly put together meme.
And now an "I know you are what am I!" comeback attempt? 
Are you actually in grade school?
Also I'm a She not a he, "buddy."
The problems arise when people start to take more than they give. (...) or someone who can contribute chooses not to and still receives the benefits.
Not a problem exclusive to socialism. Capitalism has plenty of very obvious such examples. Amazon is clearly taking in a lot more money than it is giving its workers or the govt. Bezos and others of his ilk can contribute more to taxes, but don't, they evade them all thanks to legal loopholes and still receive govt benefits.
Thatâs obviously not true because 99.99% (Iâm being dramatic) of owners work an equal or greater number of hours per week than the rest of the employees.
Maybe true for smaller companies. I doubt Musk, Bezos, Sundar Pichai, Zuckerberg or similars even work 40h a week. MAYBE they did, many years ago. Nowadays? Doubtful.
And thereâs also the fact that while needing to know how every aspect of the company operates the owner is the one who takes the biggest risks and has the most at stake so it makes sense that they make more than the new hire who has no work experience.
Do you really think that a single person's work can be worth more than 1000x the work of someone else? To put some perspective: someone who earns 20 million a year is the equivalent of having a hourly salary of ~10,500. What kind of miraculous, one-of-a-kind work is worth that? Bezos doesn't know how "every aspect of the company operates", nor do any CEO of any megacorp. Or, to give a better example, no general or field marshal knows "every aspect" of the platoons and soldiers under his command, they rely almost entirely on his subordinates' reports, which may embellish or hide details.
technically all costs of the company can and are taken out of the owners paycheck because the lower profit the company makes the lower the owners paycheck can be
Except when it's taken out of the workers' paycheck who get fired to ensure those above don't lose their bonuses
They arent really loopholes though are they, Musk for instance is taking a risk to avoid taxes, and someone else with a low time preference is benefiting by accruing interest by lending him money.
They still pay taxes in the end, and it will be far higher than it would be if we plucked the fruit of their labor now. Except the IRA thing but that cant be terribly common, and again Thiel took a massive risk by not diversifying. But sure go ahead and write a law to take a chunk of that unicorn whenever it is he decided to realize it, it will fund a few hours of government spending.
That's the problem with a C- in economics. If you sit behind that person and decide you're going to just try to write the opposite of what they do you're going to get an F
owners work an equal or greater number of hours per week than the rest of the employees.
You're describing small shop owners, the meme's about big corporations.
You know that, but you choose to deflect.
The problem with socialism is that people put it as: "You won't need to do any work and still get money".
And that makes the whole system sound stupid, because it just won't work that way.
Use the correct words and explain the real thing.
No socialists say that though. That's just what opponents of socialism pretend socialists say.
Or maybe just someone fooled by said pretenders.
I don't see anyone explaining socialism that way.
Capitalists love making straw men of socialism like that.
Perhaps because you are not in spaces where people do so, trying to make Socialism and Communism sound stupid to make other people uninterested in others that would talk about it.
It might even be a part of someone's misinformation campaign, really.
The same place had people calling themselves Muslim and trying to make others angry at them, in ways that it would increase -ive sentiment towards the religion itself.
Simply put, the moment you put a buzzword onto anything (like any *-ism), that opens it to be grouped with anything anyone might claim it to be. And that's why one needs to make sure to explain what they mean by the word, every time they want to argue about its pros/cons with others.
I suppose that exists on Reddit, but I don't really see that much overall.
The problem with socialism is that people put it as: âYou wonât need to do any work and still get moneyâ.
I've only heard anti socialists say that as a way of smearing socialism. This is the kind of shit you hear in a PragerU video or something.
a way of smearing socialism
That's the problem.
It is pretty easy to smear any *-ism or honestly any buzzword.
See what's happening with the word AI.
Some scientists use a very specialised model to make an actual +ive impact and everyone says "AI is great!" and use that to drive funding for destabilising the technology industry/market.
Those who like to irresponsibly control people, will use buzzwords to attract people into groups and then use them to further an unrelated agenda by slowly drifting away from everything the word once stood for.
This is essentially the history we know of: under the names of gods of religions, of languages, and then ideologies and regimes.
In the end, all of them go to help those who will control people without caring about how they use them.
What's your proposed solution then?
I don't have a solution for others.
Only one that I decided for myself and then applied it.
You gotta find your own balance point for how much you care about correctness and how much you are fine being led astray by "leaders" in turn for likeability and easy conversations.
I personally don't subscribe to the idea of leaders who can't justify their position. Maybe your problem is that you see socialism as a system to be implemented rather than a thing that you do? Like, socialism is, and should be a constant revolutionary project, not just a static position.
Like, socialism is, and should be a constant revolutionary project, not just a static position.
If you try to put it that way, that then again opens it for others to add/remove as they feel like.
While I understand that socialism is not some hard program that can exactly apply to every scenario, there has to be some tenets of it that are defended well, to prevent a malicious actor from uprooting its base.
My personal solution is simply that I don't subscribe to any *-ism and don't group myself with anything even if it tends to provide similar solutions in the current scenario, simply because in some other one, the group's solution might end up greatly differing from what I would consider acceptable.
Like, socialism is, and should be a constant revolutionary project, not just a static position.
If you try to put it that way, that then again opens it for others to add/remove as they feel like.
While I understand that socialism is not some hard program that can exactly apply to every scenario, there has to be some tenets of it that are defended well, to prevent a malicious actor from uprooting its base.
There's is. It's really simple: "From each, according to their ability, to each, according to their need." Anything else on top of that is philosophical.
My personal solution is simply that I don't subscribe to any *-ism and don't group myself with anything even if it tends to provide similar solutions in the current scenario, simply because in some other one, the group's solution might end up greatly differing from what I would consider acceptable.
This is a similar tact that I took when I was about 16-17, but I find that to be a very naive point of view. Regardless of whether or not you want to apply any label to yourself (which is perfectly valid) the material conditions of the system we live in will come down on you too. So you either end up in the "We are stronger together" camp, or you end up in the "Me and mine are what needs to be protected. Other people be damned" camp. And if you find yourself in the former, you most likely align with people who call themselves socialist, and if you find yourself in the latter, well then you're probably a bootlicker
you find yourself in the latter, well then youâre probably a bootlicker
Considering how I have seen people claiming to be from the former camp expecting bootlickers, I'd say that assumption doesn't work out well in real life.
Those who try preaching "We are stronger together" and "according to their ability" are most of the times the same who would damn everyone when they find the perfect time, while also using the same words to make others give them a hierarchical position.
And in the end, you still have the players get power while the workers get exploited and their voices shut down.
Opportunism is a real problem in every system, but you can stop it if you're well organized. Ultimately I reject your framing because if we were all power hungry we'd be licking fascist boots, not talking to the powerless.
Problem is, you are not my colleague or my boss or similar people. You are someone I might not even end up interacting IRL.
Most people will just ignore the people slowly amassing power because they tend to be discreet enough to not raise too many alarms and the same thing might look like just incompetence unless one is looking closely enough.
Then there will be people who just find it easier to de-escalate situations, no matter what the outcome, that end up helping the malicious ones get out unscathed. Cover-ups follow.
And the power-hungry will mostly be found in places of power. Whether you interact with them directly, depends upon where you end up working.
The most hard working and benevolent people I have seen, are coincidentally also those who tell you to care about yourself.
They won't preach teamwork or communality, but that comes naturally to them. They won't ask you to help others, but will help with what they are good at and not treat it as a favour. They don't bid you to be helpful, but enable you to get to a place where you can be helpful. Also, they won't act like they overtly care about you.
I feel like you've interacted with too many socialists online. That is not my irl experience at all. In fact, your last paragraph there does describe most irl socialists.
Except that they neither identify as socialists, nor do they care about the other's *-ism.
So you see, one neither needs to be any *-ist nor requires to accept all terms of any group, to be able to have +ive interactions with them. The only time that is required, is when it is an extremist group.
I think you're way too hung up on labels. Why do you give a shit what somebody else calls themselves? Maybe you've just been meeting socialists that know you have a weird anti"-ism" thing, so they just don't use that word and instead describe ideas to you (which is a fairly common tactic to take around somebody that is slightly unhinged). Nobody said everybody needs to be any kind of anything. There are lots of helpful people to socialist causes who don't consider themselves to be socialists. That's called critical support is is highly valued.
youâve just been meeting socialists that know you have a weird anti"-ism" thing
No. I have been meeting people who don't even know about the word.
You sound like:
"All good guys are ours."
"All bad guy claiming to be with us, are not really ours."
way too hung up on labels
When the label is your agenda and you are calling me "hung up".
"Its 2026 and in my third week here on North Sentinel Island, I've discovered that, despite a century of a world super power using the word 'socialist' in the name of their country, somehow these people have never heard the word, 'socialism'".
That's how you sound.
Once again, I don't give a shit what people call themselves, so if they are good guys, they are on the same side as me, because that's the side I've chosen? People claiming to be socialists but they're not actually socialists, then they're not socialists. That's not a bad guy/good guy thing, that's just how words work.
Again, there are incredible people who have been vital to the socialist causes who would never call themselves socialist, and there are no problems with that.
My problem is with you specifically. The label isn't my agenda beyond just trying to get you to stop caring about what someone.calls themselves and start caring about what they do.
âIts 2026 and in my third week here on North Sentinel Island, Iâve discovered that, despite a century of a world super power using the word âsocialistâ in the name of their country, somehow these people have never heard the word, âsocialismââ.
Well, some people just never learnt English
trying to get you to stop caring about what someone.calls themselves and start caring about what they do.
Guess what? I always ever really cared about what people do. And someone calling themselves something is part of what they do, for whatever reasons they do.
I don't have a problem with this part. My problem is the direction you take after this conclusion.
Words will always mean something to people and when someone calls themselves a part of some groups or when someone calls others a part of their group, politics takes over from that point. That affects the masses and masses have power.
So even if I actively try to stay out of said "masses", doesn't mean it won't affect me.
That word only exists in English? That's weird, I wonder then how so many people from non-Engliah speaking countries learned about it then?
Yeah I was being facetious.
But a better way to say that is - Not everyone has the time to subscribe to all such things, no matter how widespread it is. And I am saying this as one that literally has "Socialist" in the constitution of my country.
Then, I don't know what to say to you. Having conversations with low information people with yield low information results. That is in no way relevant to what we're talking about. You might as well have said "Yeah, but lots of people I know have never even heard the word 'fission' before" while in a thread talking about nuclear science.
Exactly my point.
People can have low/no information about your domain and still be helpful people.
Please go back and read the several different times I say exactly that in my previous comments. We don't disagree about that. We just seem to disagree that people who do use "-ism" labels can also be helpful people.
people who do use â-ismâ labels can also be helpful people.
I don't disagree about that either.
What I am saying is that (now again having to reiterate what I said before) if you use a *-ism extensively without properly defining it, you end up giving power to a phenomenon you don't get to control. And someone with the ability to control it, can come in and use it for nefarious purposes, as stated in previous comments.
"You won't need to do any work and still get money".
Redditors mis-defining socialism as capitalism again.
Unlike workers, Capitalists make their living, not by clocking in and being paid a certain fixed wage per hour, but through absentee ownership. Their wealth is earned while sleeping, playing golf, or visiting the mailbox to collect pieces of this wage theft, often in the form of stock dividends. A worker's wealth is dependent on the number of hours they can work; a Capitalist's wealth is based on how much absentee property they can accumulate, and as such can multiply infinitely. Some Capitalists earn an average worker's yearly salary in a single night's sleep.
For example, a Copper mine owner neither physically mines the copper, and (living thousands of miles away) likely delegates day-to-day operations to a hired manager. Yet, because they have a piece of paper that says they own it, they get a large cut of everything that was mined: the ultimate free lunch.
A 1983 report by England national income and expenditures found that on average, 26 minutes of every hour worked (or 43% of labor value added) by English workers across a wide range of industries went to various exploiting or unproductive groups, with workers receiving only 57% of their pre-tax productive output as wages<sup>1</sup>. In other words, at least 40% of the work you do every day is stolen by Capitalists.
For example, a Copper mine owner neither physically mines the copper, and (living thousands of miles away) likely delegates day-to-day operations to a hired manager.
And while they try validating their position with, "I take all the risks", they would also, transfer all the damage to the workers at the drop of a hat, then lobby the Government to undo their losses at the cost of everyone else giving power to the Government.
Are you arguing about a meme and demanding it be remade for you?
no.
I can use some GIMP, if I required that.
You really should read some theory and look at real socialist practice before you arrogantly state things that are just completely false.
Edit: misread the comment thought the were making the quoted point.
So you're saying that noone does any work in socialist countries? They wouldn't last many days if that was the case
No? To the contrary, people need to work if they are able, at least until automation can cover most production and distribution.
Exactly, that's why it was weird of the commenter to object to someone saying that socialism isn't "You won't need to do any work and still get money" with "you should read some theory" as if socialist theory said that that was exactly what socialism is
I don't think that was their intention.
Based on their edit it wasn't, they had misread the original comment
I understand that that is not what Socialism actually means.
People who thought of the system weren't idiots.
I know, QuinShi was the one i was critiquing since they were trying to correct you when it was really just them not understanding your original comment
I think you replied to the wrong person
Nope
Then you didn't understand what was being said and should reread it. People work in socialist countries like I work in China we just have a minimum standard guaranteed to us and the government actually works for us instead of for corporations.
Then you didn't understand what was being said and should reread it.
yeah i did actually read it multiple times to make sure i didn't misread it, did you?
Edit: misread the comment thought the were making the quoted point.
Let's double check before making accusations next time
read some theory and look at real socialist practice
I live in a socialist country. And it works (well, at least better than current US).
You should go around interjecting people who say, "You wonât need to do any work and still get money" and link them to places where they can read the theory, to reduce such BS'ers.
Do you live in Cuba, Vietnam, the PRC, DPRK, Laos, or Venezuela? If not, you don't live in a socialist country, but a social democracy, which is capitalism but with safety nets. These social democracies in Europe rely on imperialism to subsidize their safety nets.
They live in India
Ah, gotcha.
Heyyy! No spoilers.
Now they don't have the drive to read my extremely lengthy comment explaining the situation and then trying to guess my country from that.
Sorry!
I live in a country that went from Imperial control to almost fully Socialist (except for the Police, which are mostly tamed bullies) and is now rapidly progressing towards Capitalism (probably because anyone that refuses to do so, gets on the offside of US).
And PRC qualifies as neither Socialist nor Capitalist.
If it's not on the list, it isn't socialist. As for the PRC, public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes control the state, it's socialist by definition.
and the working classes control the state
I find it hard to believe that the majority of the working class people consider territorial expansion to be good for anyone in this age.
I find it hard to believe that China is engaged in territorial expansion when it hasn't dropped a single bomb in 35 years
Or do mean the border dispute with India? Because that's an artifact of the British drawing shitty borders and imposing them on subjugated people and those people have not established an effective framework for redressing the problem yet
Nepal
Why did the British not colonise Nepal
Forget British, forget military occupation. What decides who is worthy of controlling a place?
I believe, one that is there during hard times 2 3. PDF
And considering how China tried to cut off downstream from Tsang Po, even if I were to assume China controlled all of Indian territory, that act doesn't make Chinese government particularly desirable. And if we consider that China doesn't control said territory, then that makes China a bad neighbour at best and an incompetent governor at worst.
See, I am not very patriotic. I am fine with whatever the name of my country is. But the difference between how the land resources are controlled and distributed over the years, make me seem like China will end up being a worse Central Govt. than India (which isn't particularly great already), for the given territory.
Are you actually arguing that the PRC would govern territory materially worse than the Indian Union does today? That Chinaâs central state has demonstrated lower developmental capacity, weaker redistribution, and poorer integration of peripheral regions than India? If that is your stance, then it requires empirical support, because the comparative data point in the opposite direction.
Over the last four decades, China has eliminated extreme poverty at a national scale recognized even by multilateral institutions. It has built dense transport networks into frontier regions, universalized basic electrification, and industrialized at a speed unprecedented in modern history. Per capita infrastructure stock, manufacturing capacity, high-speed rail coverage, and energy generation all exceed Indiaâs by large margins.
India remains characterized by deep regional inequality, persistent rural poverty, underemployment, and infrastructure gaps especially in peripheral areas such as the Northeast. State capacity for large-scale mobilization and coordinated development is structurally weaker. Growth has been significant, but uneven, and heavily mediated through private capital rather than centralized planning mechanisms.
If the question is resource distribution, Chinaâs fiscal transfer system and central planning apparatus have demonstrated stronger equalization effects between coastal and inland regions than Indiaâs centerâstate fiscal balance has achieved. If the question is infrastructure delivery, Chinaâs record is quantitatively superior. If the question is poverty reduction, the scale difference is like that of an ant versus the sky.
You can criticize aspects of governance in both systems. But to assert that China would be a âworse central governmentâ in developmental terms is not supported by comparative political economy.
developmental terms
No, I am not at all calling China's capabilities low in terms of creating a war machine.
I am talking in terms of how quality of life has been affected by either of them in places which both countries are calling as their own (see my points in the above comment). While China tries to call Arunachal Pradesh and parts of J&K and its people as under itself, India is what sends the disaster relief resources, whereas China considers blocking natural resources to try and increase discontent of the people living in those areas.
China took longer than India to even admit the increasing air-quality problems in high pollution states,[although for both countries, the actual metrics being used to report them hardly align with actual types of pollutants and the mitigations in response have been "too little too late" for both] which shows me that the govt. doesn't like admitting facts. And personally, I am fine working with people who fail a lot, as long as they are consistent in communication and don't try mixing lies into reports. Because trustability is an important part of any relationship, which also applies to governments.[The main reasons I give flak to US govt and organisations is due to their lack of consistency, which makes them very less trustworthy.]
And I am not even going to point out the actual quality of buildings that you might have been a part of your metrics, simply because I expect enough people to have pointed those (and other similar conditions out to you).
While Indian buildings aren't particularly great either, I am in a 10+ year old building which was not designed for earthquakes and has still not cracked (much less collapsed into a death trap) despite multiple of those.
Then comes the destruction of values over the years. China has had a rich culture of thousands of years and any such civilisation develops values and traditions that are conductive to longevity.
But the recent values shown by adults (not even children) from China has indicated an erosion of older values that were developed over the centuries in China. This is not something that happens easily without intervention from higher powers (and I am inclined to think it was the govt, unless you know of any other power that might have to gain from activities that cause this side-effect).
While there has been quite a lot of food adulteration problems in India, there are some lines that people would not cross. Specially the working class (who actually care about values unlike the business class) would never. But the normal people that seem to come out of China to set examples, don't seem to be doing any good for its reputation.
Ah you're a reactionary spouting tofu dreg and other nonsense. You should try look into things outside your nationalist bubble.
Edit:
âI am not at all calling Chinaâs capabilities low in terms of creating a war machine.â
Chinaâs comparative advantage over the past forty years has been poverty eradication, infrastructure build-out, electrification, and industrial capacity. Reducing that to militarism is either ignorance or bad faith. Where's your high speed rail? Where are your clean streets? Why is your literacy so low? Why do you have so many shanty towns? Why do your tech expos have to pretend Chinese tech is Indian invented?
âIndia is what sends the disaster relief resourcesâŚâ
India administers those territories. Of course it sends relief? Are you an idiot?
âChina considers blocking natural resourcesâŚâ
There is no evidence that China has cut off Brahmaputra flow to manufacture discontent. The projects are run-of-river. Seasonal fluctuations are monsoon-driven. You are asserting intent without evidence. That is speculation.
âChina took longer to admit air-quality problemsâŚâ
Chinaâs PM2.5 levels have declined substantially since 2013 after aggressive regulatory intervention. India today has multiple cities ranking among the most polluted globally by annual average concentration. If the metric is environmental turnaround after crisis recognition, Chinaâs trend line is steeper. You are ignoring trajectory and focusing on narrative.
âActual quality of buildingsâŚâ
âTofu dregâ is a meme, not a dataset. China has built the largest high-speed rail network on earth, thousands of kilometers of expressways, and entire metropolitan regions within two decades. Failures exist, as in India, collapsed bridges, unsafe housing, infrastructure accidents. Anecdotes do not overturn macro-level engineering capacity.
âDestruction of values⌠erosion of older values⌠normal people coming out of ChinaâŚâ
I bet you love those caste values as you beat those dalits to keep them in line.
Yeah a border dispute over a few hundred acres. Please don't use words like "territorial expansion" when discussing a few hundred acres along a contentious border that has historically been undefined and only in modern times have there been an attempt to make them fixed.
a few hundred acres
It started with a few metres in some cases and has been going on at multiple fronts.
Perhaps PRC needs to stop expecting people to forget the past and start noticing how they contradict their own self.
The tensions have been created by PRC's "an inch a day" tactics, which I honestly see as nothing more than petty (and I am saying this, knowing full well than PRC would want to call India "petty", to help them get more fake points).
For Nepal
And if it really was just about a "few hundred acres" and PRC really worked with a Socialist philosophy, then they would:
a) Not really need to worry about Nepal (a pretty small country with hardly any military power) being any sort of a threat that would require putting effort to take a small amount of land.
b) Consider how the small amount of land would hardly make a difference to the people of China, while it would make a big difference to a country with was lesser land than China.
And that is where the inconsistency I talk about, comes in place.
Nepal is an otherwise docile country and I am pretty confident they would have been happy to have partial open borders with some kind of trade treaties in that area.
As such, while you try to play it down by calling it "contentious", Nepal was trying to hide any such transfer or annexation, fearing what exactly? If it were really fairly claimed, there wouldn't be a real reason for that, no?
You do realize that the border is with Tibet, right? An autonomous region within China that has never been recognized as a state with firm boundaries in all of human history. The border is contentious because borders are contentious. As much as you might not like border disputes, there is nothing socialist or anti-socialist about having border disputes. Nepal doesn't want to make a big diplomatic stink over the situation. You want to psychologize them as fearful of China and therefore China isn't socialist?
You're not making any sense. China is not engaged in imperial capitalist expansion simply because there's a few hundred acres being built on by the TAR along their own border in ways that violate the border. That's a resolvable tension and doesn't amount to a hill of beans.
He's an Indian nationalist he's not going to make sense when it comes to China.
China is not engaged in imperial capitalist expansion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_imperialism
Oh hey, I got you mad enough to chase me around now, eh? Welcome! I like that your primary beef with me is that you think I can't read but then you post this particular link. Very well done! Do continue, please.
mad? nah, I just want to annoy you some more. it's low hanging fruit, I know, but I also know you can't help but angrily try to debate me.
I'm not angry, Lu. I'm just disappointed
you have a pathological need to have the last word, don't you?
Absolute comedy gold
it is, isn't it?
Lmao you should check the sources on natopedia before you post. Western tabloids and government spin off NGO's.
Lmao you should check the sources
the article sources multiple Asian communist parties. you should, as you said, check the sources. but go on, give us your best No True Scotsman.
The Nation, The Diplomat, Center for European Policy Analysis, The Week, Jamestown Foundation, The central Asian caucus analyst, The Japan times, The Guardian, transnational institute, The Washington post, the daily telegraph, Harvard international review, financial times, the times of India, the Carnegie endowment, Nikkei Asia, the economic times, lowly institute, New York Times, the wall Street journal, human rights watch, foreign policy, BBC, Tibetan review, Taipei times.
I wonder if something ties all these sources together? Maybe an ideological alignment? People like you give anarchists a bad name.
there you go. for a No True Scotsman, that wasn't bad.
I wonder if something ties all these sources together?
nice of you to forget to mention those sources quoting communist party members.
People like you give anarchists a bad name.
you're staning a dictator from a platform whose admins support a transphobic dev. to be perfectly honest, I don't give a shit what you think about "people like me". and I wouldn't, even if tankies didn't view anarchists as expendable fodder and enemies of the state. the fact of your mere association with your instance is enough to tar you with the stain of their bigotry.
Pointing out imperial aligned sources aren't socialist and have a narrative is no true Scotsman? Are you sure you know what that phrase means? Might as well just link a Radio Free Asia article cut the natopedia middleman.
You are disgusting calling me transphobic for simply using this site. Also what dictator am I stanning? I am simply calling out your lazy source that is clearly filled with American propaganda sources. If you take American propaganda outlets at face value you shouldn't call yourself an anarchist you're a lib. One who is severely detached from history and reality at that. I don't support the Devs? I have never donated and there are no ads? I don't know them personally. You seem like a shitty person and a petulant child.
Pointing out imperial aligned sources arenât socialist
the source is a communist party. repeating a lie doesn't make it true. stop ignoring communists just because they don't agree with your emotional viewpoint.
You are disgusting calling me transphobic for simply using this site.
I don't believe I ever said that. if you feel that's what I said, then perhaps you're just expressing your subconscious feelings of guilt. no need to drag me into that. you should calm down and consider your actions. try to do better, people like you give communists a bad name.
the fact of your mere association with your instance is enough to tar you with the stain of their bigotry
Fuck you. Stop lying. Try be a better person.
Fuck you. Stop lying.
the fact of your mere association with your instance is enough to tar you with the stain of their bigotry
allow me to quote myself clearly not calling your transphobic. you are stained by association with them, for sure. but you are trying to twist my words into something that they are not because you clearly are not feeling well.
Try be a better person.
I am a better person than you will ever be, simply for not defending authoritarian regimes.
𤣠You are so far from a serious person. I wish you the best in life and hope you maturebas you age. đ¤Ł
They simp for regimes because they are colored red. Marx said imperialism is good when they do it, famously.
And China will only call it "resolvable" as long as the resolution ends up with them getting more area.
Hi, I added to my comment. Please check
China isn't expansionist, though.
You are an interesting person