So I’ve tried Mastodon, Pixelfed and didn’t like them. Mastodon is nice if you wanna ”tweet”, but that’s not for me. Pixelfed was dead.
I quit Meta because of tech bro fascism, and hated Twitter even before it was X because, let’s face it - nobody has ever changed their opinion on anything because of a Twitter conversation (I know I’m exaggerating, to get my point across). I was in Reddit for a few weeks, and the conversations there seem mostly friendly and constructive, but I decided I don’t want to have anything to do with social media corporations. Besides, I noticed I could scroll endlessly. And that’s not good for me.
Lemmy seems nice. There are still some topics I’m interested in that don’t have active communities, and I’m still learning on how to have my feed from multiple instances. But still, this is the way to go for me.
Against algorithms, against fascism, for free internet. Thanks for coming to my boring Ted talk and have a nice day.
Your ideology doesn't have any allies then. It's used in Cuba and in North Korea. That's all.
In Cuba, they are losing ground because the people don't want the government to have a monopoly on labour.
North Korea is kim's paradise
Your only hope is to brand china communist. But are they?
"The private sector already accounts for over 60% of GDP, 70% of technological innovation, and, more potently, employs over 80% of the workforce across the country's urban cities."
Chinese capitalists own majority stakes everywhere in the world. They control the cobalt in Congo for example.
In both Cuba and the DPRK they've been under a brutal siege war from the United States since the revolution, don't pretend like they struggle for no reason. There are certainly problems, but they can be laid firmly at the feet of the US empire and its proxies.
But the US won't be around forever and BRICS is opening the world economy to them. They endured a near century of humiliation and its finally coming to an end, I'm excited to see how they develop without a US boot on their necks! Aren't you?
As for China, I was skeptical about the Dengist reforms. It's like you said, they boosted private sector development and investment. The created billionaires. They allowed for heightened exploitation of workers. They suppressed Maoists.
They proved politics are still in command with Zero COVID, though. Ever since China's heroic pandemic response I am optimistic that the private sector is subordinate. They're willing and able to tell their billionaires "no" and force them to obey.
See, the purpose of the Dengist reforms was to develop China's economy as fast as possible while avoiding Western retaliation, like what happens to every other communist country that becomes the subject of endless siege and proxy warfare, and it worked. Unlike under capitalism where the anarchy of the market dictates production, China has its productive capacity firmly under the control of the government. They still issue marching orders to the private sector and they centrally plan their development.
China is now a world leader in technological innovation and is critical to the global supply chain as a key node of production. As much as Trump wants to do a trade war he's more likely to hurt the US than to actually hurt China. China is still dominated by the capitalist mode of production, like you said, but since the Party remains in command they'll be able to abolish the market entirely without fear of Western retaliation. Capitalism is just a stage of development, after all.
Also, don't ignore Vietnam. They have been on a similar trajectory as China, developing their economy and integrating themselves into the supply chain, and now they're growing closer with China with every new idiot tariff imposed by Trump.
I find that """social democrats""" are just pessimists. You think revolution never works and communism always fails, and so you retreat into reformism and liberalism. I still have revolutionary optimism, though, which means I don't even need to win this argument. I'm certain that you'll see that I'm right soon enough. ☺️
So you agree that capitalism is the best way to develop a country. So, capitalism is good? It relocates everytime to a poorer country. Developing that country.
At the end, the whole world will be developed. I'm not an anarchist, so I'm quite fond of governments creating stability in their region. (Not a revolutionary indeed).
North Korea and Cuba joining globalist trade is fine by me. Cuba already sends out their doctors abroad.
Cuba trades a lot with Spain and China.
Problem though. Their doctors would earn more money in other Latin American countries. Which they often do. They emigrate to one of those countries and then have their family live a luxurious life in Havana.
This is because in those other countries, even though same level of wealth, they are self employed as doctors. They get the entire fruits of their labour :)
Competition is very important. Just like you don't want Elon musk to be a monopolist, you don't want a government to be a monopolist either. Competition is necessary.
I don't know much about Vietnam, so I didn't talk about them. Their language makes me go insane not gonna lie 🥲
I did watch documentaries about Cuba though, so talking a bit more about that.
I'm not a fan of revolutions. Look at Libya and Syria. Revolutions aren't good.
If you want to do a revolution, you better accept to live a full generation in pure poverty in the hope that your children will have it better.
Then compare it to a place that has been having stability in the same period.
The place with stability will be stronger on the global scene most likely. Such as Switzerland Vs the rest of Europe that were involved in world war 2.
Stability means growth.
You view me as a pessimist and I view you as a pessimist. You see no other way out than revolution.
I can assure you, in my day to day life I am the optimist. My wife's rather pessimistic aha.
Like when trump crashed the market and I pumped it full. My wife was like "you're having a baby, you need to be careful".
Right now the stocks look green af.
I'm saying I'mma take a 100k euros mortgage.
She's like "we're having a baby, can you even afford that?"
Tsk tsk tsk 🌝
Edit: let's ask my best buddy the cat from mistral AI 😤
Estimating the percentage of revolutions that bring prosperity is challenging due to the varied nature of revolutions and their outcomes. However, based on historical observations, it's clear that while some revolutions have led to significant improvements in economic and political conditions, many others have resulted in instability, conflict, or the rise of new repressive regimes.
Factors that influence the success of a revolution in bringing prosperity include:
Given these factors, a rough estimate might be that a minority of revolutions—perhaps around 20-30%—lead to sustained economic prosperity and political stability. This estimate is speculative and based on the general understanding that successful revolutions are relatively rare and often face significant challenges in achieving their goals.
Okay...
Leadership? You can do that, I believe in you.
Popular support. No, you simply are a minority.
Nobody in Europe wants a revolution. Guess what the last revolution was, it was to not be communist 😬
International support. You can get China's support
You should read How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, capitalism didn't help them at all. They were intentionally deprived of industrial and intellectual property that would allow them to build up their own means of production -- underdeveloped by capitalism
and intentionally kept at a lower stage of development to superexploit the workers and extract superprofits.
Flag independence and so-called decolonization didn't mean freedom to develop either, now under neocolonialism the same underdevelopment takes place. Libya and Syria are just more examples of the same neocolonial agenda, to underdevelop nations and force them to be subservient to the imperial core. Those weren't revolutions, they were Western dirty wars: coup the government, pour in weapons to fuel whatever terrorist groups are willing to work with the West, sanction the people to make the economy scream, etc. etc.
So, no, capitalism wasn't the best way to develop any of those countries.
The reason China needed to use capitalism to develop was solely to fool the West into doing business. There's a saying attributed to Lenin; "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." That's all China has done. Not only did the capitalists sell them the rope, the capitalists also sold them the rope factories and outsourced every step of rope production.
China was never capitalist. They're communists wearing the flayed skin of capitalism to trick it into lowering its guard.
Capitalism also isn't developing the imperial core anymore. We have reached a stage of deindustrialization, where now instead of building up infrastructure and production capacity we're letting capital strip the wiring from the walls to maximize cost cutting without actually developing anything. There is some development that still happens thanks to government grants and public institutions, but now neoliberalism is cutting those too to "save money". Thanks to rampant privatization and austerity everything is worse.
And of course there's no popular support for a communist revolution here in the West, this is the imperial core. We grew fat and rich off of the superprofits from imperialism, revolution would mean a redistribution of wealth from the imperial core to the periphery. That means Europe and Canada and the US will have to pay repairations for what they have done to the world. I don't expect that to be popular here!
Oh yeah, after Congo got independence from Belgium. Their purchasing power reduced to not even 10% of what it was at 1960 at the time of 1979.
Right now Congo is being "neocolonised" by China. (Majority stake in their cobalt for China's dominance in electric vehicles)
https://zeenews.india.com/video/news/viral-video-of-chinese-employers-assault-on-african-workers-sparks-racism-and-slavery-allegations-2746407.html
South Africa however is a whole different story. They are the most inequal country in the world.
Africa has a median net wealth per adult of 1250 USD. Mean is 8400 USD.
For South Africa this is 5200 USD median and 25000 usd average.
The approach in Congo was a lot more revolutionary while in South Africa it was reformist. In Congo, any Belgian was forcibly deported and many were murdered. In South Africa there are still a lot of descendants from dutchies.
I believe that China's investment in Congo will be good for Congo, as most investments are.
The Belgian investments were to extract raw resources from the country. But these railroads and trains are still being used today.
Nobody really wants to help Congo unless they get financially rewarded for it. Congo is quite a scary place too, for business. All that instability?
Revolutions = instability = capital flight = poverty
We'll see what happens. The west developed China. Now it's China's turn to develop Africa. About time too, fucking hell, we're so close to Africa. Become developed so that we can do meaningful trade.
The investments in china have been tremendously rewarding.
You and I view China very different. You might view them as Buddhism and the west as Christian.
But I view Europe as Judaism. America as Christianity and china as islam. 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0
The same thing, just different branding. It's all capitalism.
Yes, and that was revenge. Countries were punished for winning independence.
Those railroads are just supply lines that ship from resource extraction points to seaports. The railroads don't connect cities or provide infrastructure for actual people or act as part of the supply chain for internal production. They were built to be purely extractive. That's not real development, that's underdevelopment. The railroads ship out cobalt and ground nuts and the people of the DRC are deprived of access for their own civilian or industrial uses.
Colonizers did not develop Africa. This is a lie spread by colonizers to hide their crimes against humanity.
Yeah, because Belgians raped and tortured and murdered so many Congolese people. The sick shit colonizers did in Africa rivals the Nazis.
No no no, China developed itself by fooling the West (into selling them the rope, get it?) because the West never develops anything by choice.
Look, if revolution can be avoided that's great! Venezuela managed to do it and they'd be doing quite well if it weren't for imperialist meddling from the US. I'm not saying that revolution is the only option, only that the abolition of capitalism must be the end goal. I say "end goal" because it's not realistic to just abolish markets and commodity production and wage labor instantly and expect it to work. The abolition of capitalism will take time.
But if your goal is to keep capitalism alive forever you are not a leftist. Deal with it.
Aight but can you also talk about china on Congo and the video I showed you? I'm saying china is just the same as Europe and America.
I find that normal. China is new to having power, their government has a lot of power in their own region. People their opinions are suppressed in china. They have the great firewall of china.
What you are doing here, is not allowed in China. You'd be seen as a traitor and dealt with by the government.
You're critical of your government. You're a product of the west.
That's a specific incident, I don't think it shows some kind of widespread colonialism from China. This doesn't compare to Belgium at all, their colonial behavior was well documented and systematic.
As for China's firewall and their regulation of criticism, they have to protect themselves from propaganda that gets endlessly pumped out by Western billionaires and governments. There's a material reason for these laws, they aren't just evil totalitarians that hate freedom.
This sometimes results in people getting caught in the crossfire, and that's not good, but what else can China do? If they just allow endless Western meddling they'll have unrest and terrorism as people get radicalized by billionaires, far right factions, and the US State Department.
Nah, you didn't criticise china enough. Fail.
It's a country of 1,4 billion people. With a massive controlling government that is powerful enough to bring stability to such a huge amount of people.
Do you know how easy it is to find bad things about any country and any government?
You can always criticise governments. Their one decision will always help a certain amount of people and put another amount of people in a disadvantage.
The world isn't roses and sunshine.
My advice to you. Become a pragmatist, stop being an ideologist. I stopped trolling with this comment
Yes, their decision helps their government stay stable and in control and it puts Western-backed counter-revolutionaries at a disadvantage. They have to do this or, again, they're going to have to deal with political violence as people get radicalized by Western governments and billionaires.
I generally agree with China's firewall, of course I'm not going to criticize it that much. I like it when my enemies are silenced, because I'm not a liberal and I don't believe my enemies should have a right to speak. 😊
The world isn't roses and sunshine, after all.
That puts you at a disadvantage though. You live in the west. If we take this approach. You get executed.
Literally, we drag you out of your home in front of your family and put a bullet in your brain.
Why don't you fear this? Why aren't you going to china? It's easy, a plane ticket costs 350 euros for me to Shanghai. You're western and thus you have enough money most likely, as you've been extracting money within the imperial core.
So, immigrating in china should be quite easy.
My boss worked in Beijing and Shanghai, if he can do that, so can you.
Why are you still not within the great firewall of china?
I'm right where I need to be.
Sounds religious
It's called revolutionary optimism.
When only 20 to 30% of revolutions lead to prosperity. Optimism is definitely a necessity.