Both systems devolve into something similar: a power structure where corporate interests dominate, either through free-market success or state-sanctioned partnerships. Whether you call it corporatism or capitalism may depend on how much direct control the government exerts.
Also the "100 million people" estimate is so far flung from any possible reality that even dedicated anticommunist historians have walked it far, far back
The figure is based on John Conquest's "Black Book of Communism", a piece of historically questionable but extremely creative statistical work that pioneered such techniques as: counting the difference between projected birthrates before and after the October Revolution and WWII as deaths.
There is one type of business that is always forgotten in these discussions.
The co-operative, where the members own the business together, each an equal share and equal say. Co-op has a purpose - to produce goods or services the members require. Profits are shared. This is a social enterprise.
Fun fact, all capitalism tends towards consolidating money in the fewest hands! Always! The goal of capitalism is one person getting everything, and it will happen if it isn't stopped
Monopoly fun fact! The game was stolen from a protestor who had named it "The Landlord's Game" and made it to protest monopolies and big businesses sucking the money from a city!
You aren't supposed to like Monopoly
So to all the people who invented the tech you use every day, create innovations that improve everyone’s lives - how do you solve the “problem” of everyone “trickling” their money to them?
Most of those innovations are open source, stolen by someone, changed just enough they can sue anyone for using the open source version after they changed it! Like Windows! Bill Gates stole the work of thousands to sell as his own! Isn't that great?
The invention was communist, stolen by capitalism.
Then let's answer it. There is no actual need for money to be involved in your survival at all.
Our current system denies money to the inventors most of the time already.
Let's make money for fun only, and actually pay them instead of having a corporation seize the rights
Does your described society even exist in the wild? Practically every developed civilization barters, be it goods or be it fiat, so I suspect not. Altruism will only get a society so far.
Whats even funnier is that it wasn't communism that was inherently evil, it was the rulers who used it in order to become dictators to oppress the poor and stack the money. You know, like capitalism does. Communism/socialism is flawed, sure, but it's not something maliciously made.
Right! Communism is supposed to be when workers own the means of production, and decisions are made collectively. A planned economy Dictatorship is not communism.
And that’s precisely why it’s common for Dictators to arise from attempts at Communism; there’s no such thing as a planned economy or a system that prevents opportunity and greed. It’s easier for an opportunist to take power in the illusion of equality than in a system where people fight for it.
No. You missed the point. An environment which is “equal” maximizes opportunity for a single opportunist. An environment of competition takes longer to corrupt, and the corruption is relatively distributed. 1 king versus 1352 kings and various middle class and rare opportunity to break out.
Or the government is allowed to pollute the money. Being in government doesn’t make people moral or prevent them from being greedy or power-seeking. Any government as a system can easily be as flawed as any private business. Alas.
Considering there was a time when government would break up monopolies and actually get rid of corporations that didn’t serve the public good, I am much more amenable to believing the former.
What you are describing is fascism, not communism. And we are seeing the rise of it all over the world, including especially the election of Trump, which is largely a reaction to neoliberal laisser faire economics, not communism.
That's why I tend to think to myself that humanity isn't really ready for communism it's too "young" society wise if you understand my meaning, but that's just my personal thoughts.
Communism probably didn't kill 100 million people. Still too many people. Idk what statistics are used to calculate the "100 mln capitalist deaths per 5 years". With world hunger, it'd be ~45mln in 5 years. with COVID it's 6,9 mln deaths total. idk where the other 49 mln comes from.
You're all capitalists and socialisms, the THIS vs THAT is just you falling for polarization as usual. The trick is just the proper balance between the two vs giving all power to government or corporations. If more of you could see that we could make far better arguments that make sense.
No
just no
that's what led us here
no
Capitalism is cancer it is either stopped or the host body dies
there's no in between extract till extinction so billionaires can take more money and power
and live sustainably and not sacrifice life on earth so rich khunts can get richer
Friendly reminder. Capitalism is a pyramid scheme that depends on stagnation and high death rates to make room for new generations to enter the workforce. Take care of people's needs, allow them to simplify work without risking their livelihood, and promote creative freedom and the economy prospers.
Mega corps are evil. Most forms of communistism *historically speaking* end up with a mega corp like structure except its the government as the business.
There are few to null truely capitalism economies, citizens lack ability to make business when broke[This is just my view based on what I've seen]
Before anyone tries to call me something i am not, i am not blind to whats going on. The capitalism promise of "no matter who you are [thus no matter how much debt] you can make it and make business", is a false one in the current times. It is my personal goal to make it a real one, id be called a
Imagine being so tone deaf as a Communist trying to rehabilitate the mass murdering maniacs who filled the gulags and laogai and killing fields with countless corpses,by quibbling over whether the numbers murdered are wrong by a few million here and there.
"Lemme guess, ’that's not real communism’" mfs when you ask them to *actually* explain specifically how the CCP, Stalin, etc embody communism in practice, instead of gesturing at labels and pretending they made a point:
Communism is stateless classless and moneyless no it's not communism there are no communist countries not even the leaders of those countries describe their countries as communist it's a trigger word programmed into you that has you defending your own enslavement and rejecting actual freedom
diito.bsky.social @diito.bsky.social
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That's because a dictatorship is what you end up with communism every single time. It just the leftist version of fascism. Can we please drop bad ideas from the 19th and 20th centuries? Communism has and will never work.
Communism depends entirely on direct democracy. It has never been implemented anywhere at any time. Indeed, Marx himself said it never could be, since it was a theoretical ideal alone, at best it could only be approached but never achieved.
Yeah... Good luck finding anyone siding with "capitalism" that has nearly as much body count as Mao or Stalin or Pol Pot. The system thats running most of the world rn (call it capitalism if you want) is shit but communism is just a giant political scam that promises too much and gives too little.
I mean, say what you want about Pol Pot or Mao, but they didn't spend 300 years enslaving, raping and murdering an entire race of people just to boost profits on cotton and sugar.
Communism is most destructive when it's being misused. Capitalism is most destructive when it's being used as intended.
Yeah... Communists don't have body count anymore because there's no communist county left. Maybe Cuba? They are getting free markets too. PRC is "socialism with Chinese characteristics" which is essentially an upgraded version of Qin. I lived there for 21 years so don't argue about this with me.
That's kinda my point. The communist countries mostly figured out how to run functional countries/economies without staying on constant siege mode. They're not doing any worse than capitalist countries, and they aren't the one's actively undermining democracy in every corner of the globe right now.
King Leopold II ran the Congo Free State as essentially a giant factory plantation. Somewhere upwards of 7 million people were literally worked to death and and hundreds of thousands of children were mutilated to punish their parents for not working hard enough. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State
Both are flawed and unable to make everyone happy. I can't help but think this is the nature of progress and failure. We just fail a lot what can I say
Estimates put it at 148 million. That doesn’t include the over 600 million who starve in Communist countries every decade.
Capitalism usually doesn’t kill that many people either. Numbers that include WWII PUT Capitalism at 100 milllion in a century. I don’t think you could call Nazis Capitalists..
Literally every self expressed Socialist nation in the world has 67-80% poverty and most experience such low wages they cannot eat more than 3-5 times a week. That’s starvation
The ideology and actions of Nazism seemed more akin to Socialist B killing Socialist A under the argument that Socialism is bad, while not understanding their own policies were socialist. Collectivism is collectivism.
They are and aren’t. One is an economic ideology. One is a political one. They can both exist in the same realm while one defines the movement and the other becomes its wheels. Read what I screenshotted: Nazism believed in encouraging individuals to join the collective and contribute to its cause.
I don’t buy the separation of Nazism from Socialism. They removed the rights of their own citizens to commerce, enlisted them, collected gold, redistributed wealth, land, and labor. They get labeled as fascism because of the elimination of race, not because of a financial construct. 1)
Is this the part where we count starvation in China or the Soviet Union as a systemic flaw, but famines and malaria deaths in the free world as the Hand of God, while billionaires hoard wealth and shit on gold toilets?
And Cuba. And Venezuela. And North Korea. Billionaires are actually extremely pivotal in feeding the said areas where you are touting lapses, even though they don’t govern them. Warren Buffett’s son teaches African tribes sustainable farming in customized by region. It’s not the Billionaires’ wards.
True, and AFAIK the Gates Foundation does useful anti-malaria work. And yet we still have excess deaths from preventable disease and starvation in the free world. Not praising Commumism btw, only hoping that we're actually comparing (lack of) apples with apples.
I try to avoid using Gates because all the conspiracy theories, but yes. The argument for Capitalist’s responsibility for fighting health and hunger only ends where Capitalism is at fault for creating them. Some health and hunger is caused by choices not to modernize/ hold traditions/weak resources
Pure? No. Because It can’t exist. China attempts to be one. North Korea, Vietnam. China was very close for 30 years. But they can’t monitor every business and person.
correct me if I’m wrong but Wehrmacht and SS deaths during WW2 were counted in the source of this original figure, too, since the USSR fought against the Nazis.
Corporatism being the more accurate name Benito Mussolini gave to Fascism, so if he wants to deflect criticism away from capitalism then they're admitting they live in a Fascist system.
The figure of 100 million is, also, factually incorrect, in terms of state socialism, as it counted heart attacks, car crashes, and the deaths of nazi soldiers during the Second World War in order to reach said number. The person who wrote the book it comes from was "obsessed with the figure..."
Or, at the very least, preventing them would NOT make money. If the only incentive that matters is money, not human life, that's all the system will care for. It's always about what a system pushes people to do. So-called "human nature" changes with pressures to do different things. It is fungible.
How would you determine if a death was caused by capitalism? If someone dies of heart failure in their 40s because they were eating McDonald's everyday is that a death caused by capitalism? Should we stop selling certain foods to people if they're over the bmi?
Yes shit food sold for a profit killing people is death caused by capitalism we should stop allowing parasites to profit at all but most of all from deliberately causing harm
Rather: that phone you’re holding exists because thousands of people (kids mainly) die in mines all over the world digging for rare metals. That car? Kills a LOT of people but we won’t admit it. That cigarette? Mass murder. Health insurance? Kills for profit.
communism is a way of life of socialist aspects. Many forms of it are accepting of everyone. Dictators used this against people to gain control, which gave communism a bad name. Just like capitalism is a way of "life" for the greedy elite but both are two total different ways to live
Communism and socialism are two completely different systems. The reason you might be confused is because most countries practice mixed systems with blends of different ratios.
Communism is a way of like with socialist aspects, never said they were the same. What we know as communism isn't communism at all! I'm not confused about anything
My czech familly has known the communism period , I witness also:
no freedom of speech, to search food you have to make a long line in the market and even not get the meat, same salary for everybody(my grandmother was a scientific her salary is like waiter person !! the state own your properties
In most cases, the public justifications were ideological—fighting communism or protecting democracy—but economic interests and maintaining geopolitical dominance often played a central role.
Comments
the left want to remove the power imbalance entirely
not give power to some other shitcunts or take it for ourselves
Remove it
The co-operative, where the members own the business together, each an equal share and equal say. Co-op has a purpose - to produce goods or services the members require. Profits are shared. This is a social enterprise.
You aren't supposed to like Monopoly
The invention was communist, stolen by capitalism.
Our current system denies money to the inventors most of the time already.
Let's make money for fun only, and actually pay them instead of having a corporation seize the rights
Both are wrong.
We *agree* to accept traffic deaths & lung cancer deaths even though both car & cigarette are understood to be murderous
Because of Capitalism
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg
Cigarettes, absolutely.
We should rerun History but with early car accident deaths being treated as seriously as murder is. 🤷♂️
1/
Naturally, option 'Not dying at all' is much more preferable.
“NO THAT’S COMMUNISM!”
just no
that's what led us here
no
Capitalism is cancer it is either stopped or the host body dies
there's no in between extract till extinction so billionaires can take more money and power
and live sustainably and not sacrifice life on earth so rich khunts can get richer
There are few to null truely capitalism economies, citizens lack ability to make business when broke[This is just my view based on what I've seen]
Stalin would be proud of you.
The only "communist" countries we have had, Were actually just dictatorships in trenchcoats!
Aint that crazy?
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That's because a dictatorship is what you end up with communism every single time. It just the leftist version of fascism. Can we please drop bad ideas from the 19th and 20th centuries? Communism has and will never work.
In fact, given that communism intends to do away with social classes, they're antithetical to the ideology.
Communism is where the workers own the means of production.
A dictatorship does not have this quality. (understatement)
there are many more practical flaws with the concepts that you could attack, like deciding who gets which government roles in a fair, equal way.
Communism is most destructive when it's being misused. Capitalism is most destructive when it's being used as intended.
Vladmir Putin, a capitalist, lead the invasion of Ukraine.
Benjamin Netanyahu, a capitalist, has ordered the deaths of tens of thousands in Gaza.
Donald Trump is planning a mass deportation of immigrants.
What's the communist bodycount in the 21st century?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State
Also lowest body count = most moral system. Everyone knows that.
TL:DR. My understanding of this topic is much like how a common politician understands it.
Capitalism usually doesn’t kill that many people either. Numbers that include WWII PUT Capitalism at 100 milllion in a century. I don’t think you could call Nazis Capitalists..
2) there have been no communist countries.............ever
Please. Please stop saying guesstimate…. That’s not a word, and it drives me nuts
Some Americans tried to be Syndicalist during the fight for organized labor. That was pretty damn close.
I'm just kidding, they don't care.
Communism did not kill one hundred million, ever, but capitalism does it every five years.
I suppose the free market is efficient, in that one respect.
I sit here and can't understand how so many humans have accepted these values as normal.
but totally support it
i don't get human's deep compulsion for competition over co-operation
competition is survival of the fittest, i wish these people would just get in a pit and kill each other if they love it so
practice what you preach mf
Rather: that phone you’re holding exists because thousands of people (kids mainly) die in mines all over the world digging for rare metals. That car? Kills a LOT of people but we won’t admit it. That cigarette? Mass murder. Health insurance? Kills for profit.
Etc
The ubiquitousness of certain goods *starts* with capitalist whitewashing
no freedom of speech, to search food you have to make a long line in the market and even not get the meat, same salary for everybody(my grandmother was a scientific her salary is like waiter person !! the state own your properties
https://bsky.app/profile/christophergr.bsky.social/post/3lcgcljytgc2k
They have the commodity form
Seems pretty capitalistic to me
Proletarians sell their labor in exchange for wages, whereas serfs worked land in exchange for protection/subsistence.
The North Koreans are bound by their state and not necessarily the land
Every theory of governing works on paper, too bad people are involved
All it takes are the jackholes that think betrayal is a clever way to go
Republicants
The only time they get active it’s when they’ve got a new scam to roll out. Then it’s back to running in circles. Wasting time.
(MYTHICAL PEAK MENTIONED)