this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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Have you considered that there may be a link between Capitalism as a Mode of Production and the continuous strengthening of power in Monopolies over the State?
Right, "lack of monopolies", the defining trait of communism...
You're actually understanding why Communism makes sense. If centralization is an assured result of Capitalism, it makes more sense to publicly own and plan, and open up control to democratic measures. Industry will advance, and centralization will occur, so it is better to have the people own and plan this process rather than unaccountable Capitalists.
This was the entire reason behind Marx's predictions for Communism.
Monopolies are forbidden in (functioning) capitalist economies, they are not an assured result. So that kind of breaks the whole premise.
Plus the documented failure of planned economies, leading to famines and mass deaths.
You can't forbid the passage of time. Monopoly is the end result of Capitalism, firms beat others and absorb them. Simply "banning" them or breaking them up a bit does nothing to actually prevent them from forming and weakening the power of the state to do so, the state after all serves business.
Secondly, I don't know what you're genuinely getting at with planned economies and famines and mass deaths. In all AES countries, life expectancy rose dramatically, and previously common famines ended. Tsarist Russia and China under the KMT had regular famines until the Soviets and CPC respectively improved agriculture and stopped famine. It wasn't an overnight fix, but it was fixed because of the planned economy.
I think you haven't done any research at all, honestly.
What's a holodomor or two between friends, right? How many of your familiy members died in one? Or is your research just limited to dictators' propaganda?
Any source on those monopolies, btw? Banning them (again, in countries there the law applies, so not the US) works just fine. Any service or product I can think of I can get at least 3 different sources to offer it, sometimes hundreds. Unlike behind the iron curtain, which was either one or very often zero.
The famine in the 30s was indeed the last of its kind, outside of World War II when Nazi Germany took Ukraine, the USSR's breadbasket, famine was over and food stabilized in a country that had regular famines for centuries. My research includes primary sources and contemporary sources from after the opening of the Soviet Archives, I can link some books if you'd like.
As for Monopolies, look at the stock market. The state serves business, breaking up monopolies is done with the consent of larger businesses. Further, combination of firms is a necessity to combat the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, by controlling more of the supply chain for any given commodity you can streamline it and improve production capacity. This is an ever-increasing scale.
Today, wealth concentration is the highest it has been in history in some of the fewest hands possible. Monopoly is a fact.
So yeah, "what's a holodomor between friends" is indeed your argument? A small oopsie of 5M deaths. Other than that, and the purges, the gulags, the ethnic cleansing, the police state, the corruption, the mass murders and a few invasion of neighbors, everything was perfect. Oh, and the monopoly of everything.
But yes, tell me more how capitalism, some day, maybe, perhaps, if the stars align, will create some monopoly.
The famine in the 1930s was the last major famine outside of wartime in Russia, when it was previously regular. Famine wasn't so much caused by Socialism as it was ended by it. Socialism isn't magic, when revolution happens there remains decades and centuries of building towards a new and better future. I'm curious what you think the purges entailed, or the GULAG prison system, both in scope and in character, ie quantity and quality.
I really doubt you've given any thought at all towards the Soviet Union, to be honest, outside of learning about it in presumably some western school. I recommend Dr. Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds if you want a realistic critique of the Soviet Union, and not one concocted by the authors of the now long-debunked Black Book of Communism.
The fact of the matter, is that the Soviets democratized the economy, doubled life expectancy, pushed women into politics and fields previously held exclusively by men such as the scientific area, provided free and high quality healthcare, education, and childcare, lowered working hours while maintaining one of the highest growth rates in GDP in the 20th century, had retirement at 55 for women and 60 for men, over tripled literacy rates to 99.9% (higher than the US and Western Europe), went from semi-feudalism to space in 44 years, and dramatically lowered wealth inequality.
The stars don't need to align, Monopoly is already here. Presuming you live in a western country, you enjoy vast benefits from acting as the Global South's landlord through Imperialism, funded through brutal IMF loans and export of Capital.
Just forgot to add, I love how you talk about "brutal IMF loans". Brutal was when Soviet soldiers invaded my country, raping, pillaging and occupying it for almost 50 years. I assure you, taking a loan is slightly less brutal. Just a bit.
My country isn't anyone's landlord, barely regained independence not that long ago.
Not sure where you live, nor do I need to. It's a known fact that countries like the US, France, Germany, Britain, and so forth essentially act as parasites on the world and ruin those who go against them. The Soviets have historically been far better for the world than any of the Western powers.
The loans are only one small part. When you go against the Western powers, you end up like Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, Cambodia, and Afghanistan. Butchered and pillaged by the US.
Equating the Soviets to the Nazis originates with Double Genocide Theory, which is a form of Holocaust Trivialization and Nazi Apologia. They did not SA and kill indiscriminately, nor did they create mass industrialized murder. Rather, they were liberators and stopped the Holocaust.
Read Blackshirts and Reds, you are so incredibly far off of historical accuracy that you're running defense for the Nazis.
Up is down, cats are dogs and they ended famine by creating famine? Sure... What's 5 million Ukrainians here, 20 thousand poles there, minor details. Just some light ethnic cleansing, the important thing is that schools had a dentist. And that invading, occupying, opressing and exploiting 20+ other countries is good for GDP, line must go up after all. Also tell me more about how many women were First secretary? Or generals? Or any position of power?
I have spent time in the Soviet union, no need for western books, but show me more graphs and recommend more books! But not the ones you dislike, those have been apparently magically discredited by your favorite discord guru or lemmy mod.
They ended famine by industrializing and collectivizing, the Kulak sustem had regular famines. Mind explaining the "invading abd occupying 20+ countries bit?" The vast majority of post-Socialist states wished the Soviet Union never fell, it's well documented. I am also sure the 7 million that died from the dissolution of Socialism and the introduction of Capitalism would agree, if they were still alive.
Well documented, you mean by some single polls, 30 years after it happened, and even then only half of the countries have a barely positive retrospective? That's quite well documented indeed... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosy_retrospection
And you know that there's nothing preventing them from forming it again, right? If they miss it so much they could recreate it. Remind me, how many of them are in CIS and how many in the union state? Oh, only two dictatorships, Russia and Belarus? But they have so much popular support! Look at those two surveys!
The number regretting its fall most goes up when only polling those old enough to have lived through it. "Rosy Retrospection" alone doesn't cut it, it's also the tremendous decline in social safety nets and quality of life metrics like life expectancy.
There's actually quite a lot preventing them from forming it again, and it's the same thing preventing Russia from forming it until finally going through Revolution: the Capitalist state.
Seriously, consider cracking open a book once.
Yeah, it goes up for those, but it still barely cracks half and you have examples like Estonia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan where single digit people support it.
The communist party is not banned in most Eastern European countries (what a novel idea, not banning parties and not throwing political opponents in jail!) and they get single digit vote share. This evil capitalist state, preventing communism by checks notes giving people freedom, and prosperity...
Yep, a tiny minority of countries opposed it. Moreover, the idea that democracy is possible within Capitalism, itself an anti-democratic system surrounding the dictatorial command of Capital in the hands of those wealthy enough to afford it, is silly. Prosperity for the few on the backs of the many describes Capitalism aptly.
Nope 👍
By who? God?
Most communist revolutions led to massive increase in life expectancy and a massive reduction in hunger. That's just a empirical fact.
I think you’re confusing socialist planned economies with capitalism & imperialism (A.K.A. monopoly capitalism), because the vast majority of famines and mass deaths have occurred in the later[1].