this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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Any society that is not communism is not free. If your continued existence is dependant on you working for a wage you are not free. Being "free" to sign a contract that removes your rights so you can work and thus eat is not freedom.
A free society does not need to coerce you into doing things that are good for society. You do them because they are fun or fulfilling. In other words, the same reason people work on open source software.
"OK" , just remind me, which are the free communist countries again?
They don't exist
Country is a little vague so I'll supliment state in it's place. I'd argue there are communist societies but no communist states. "communist states" may be an oxymoron.
A useful way to think about self described communist states is that they are attempting to build communism. Whether or not their strategies are effective is up for rigorous debate of course.
Communist societies on the other hand have existed since the dawn of humanity. I read an interesting book titled The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. They cover a variety of indigenous groups' economies and social structures. Some could be described as communism, others were as exploitative or worse than our current society. The San tribes are a modern example of an egalitarian society or maybe more accurately a group of egalitarian societies. I'm also interested in the Zapatistas and what the folks in Northern Syria are doing but I doubt they constitue communism.
Anyway I'm no authority on these things but I hope you found the perspective interesting. The audiobook for the Dawn of Everything is fastinating and a local library might have a copy if you want to check it out.
There are no communist countries. Only Communist countries. Communism is an authoritarian state economic system that is nominally left leaning. Whereas communism is largely against states and state power, and very libertarian in the original sense.
So the answer to your question is that technically all communist countries are free. You just don't know the difference.
Ahhh... the communist countries are where all the unicorn lives... got it!
No, the actual problem is that you aren't learning. Nor are you trying to. I literally just explained to you that there is a difference between Communism and communism. And what that difference was. Your only response. Sadly to cling to the same propaganda canard.
There are no communist countries. Therefore, technically all of them are free and technically all of them are not free. Because they don't exist. Communist countries on the other hand are socially very unfree.
I truly hope you are not a programmer despite posting from a programming themed instance. If on accident you are, my sympathies to whoever hires you. Because you show the inability to differentiate between a variable name and a variable type.
You have understood that there doesn't exist any country that meets you utopian communist view, yet you have not stopped to think about why that is.
No. Literally now you are projecting. I know the reason why. And I can state it clearly. And I've already stated it to you. The reason is that communists don't want a state. Therefore, the idea of a state being communist is an oxymoron. Communists on the other hand, reject parts of communism wholesale. The USSR, PRC and DKPR call/called themselves Communist. Yet they all had more in common with dictatorial juntas and fascism than they did with communism.
At this point, you are basically asserting that a string named int is nothing but an integer.
Technical correction for historical accuracy: the USSR, PRC, etc. never called their countries Communist, but were led by Communist parties that, by their own words, were attempting to build Communism. Marxism-Leninism posits the strategy of building up the productive forces via a transitional Socialist stage before reaching Communism.
I'm not an ML myself, but it's important to understand the distinction. That's why the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not the Union of Communist Republics, because even by their own admission they were far away from Communism. This is completely separate from how effective or ineffective we may analyze them to have been at achieving this stated goal, that's an entirely separate conversation that again, I'm not an ML and am not interested in arguing.
I agree with all that. That's all fine for a nuanced discussion between those that understand it. This wasn't that conversation.
I'm not ML either. Staunchly anti ML generally. Because of how much they malign and damage the concept for those of us that are evolutionary and not revolutionary. That and the generally deadly outcomes they bring about as well as the childish behavior. 30 years ago, I would not have understood the distinction between the name applied to them and the concept the name was derived from either. Let alone the marginally good intentions, their roads to social oppression were paved with.
Speaking as a non-ML, reform is more useful as a means of preventing fascism than achieving systemic change. Building up parallel structures from the bottom-up, such as mass Unionization, is revolutionary and achieves more meaningful results locally than electoralism typically does. Electoralism has value, but cannot do much without grassroots organization.
Again, I agree. Though I think it's important to acknowledge a difference between social revolutions such as unionization where workers organize to have their voice represented against much bigger powers. And Marshall revolution. Of course, when peaceful protests becomes impossible, violent revolution becomes inevitable. Which is what happened initially with many of the ML experiments. Russia overthrowing the tzar China overthrowing the emperor etc. the problem is, when the external threat was gone. They turned on themselves.
The problem is, especially where Marxist leninists are concerned. And can be readily viewed through the lens of their use of Engles "on authority" as a crutch. They were ultimately intellectually, morally bereft. Becoming the monsters they said they'd eliminate. Forcefully annexing millions without their consent. And killing many more millions simply for their dissent. Something we must acknowledge if we're to un-hypocritically call out capitalism and capitalists.
When it comes to winning people over. We should be able to do it with words, not weapons as a rule. If you can't, either they're paid not to understand. Or your ideas are lacking.
Alright, now that you've elaborated more I'm more inclined to agree.
My policy is more anti-tendency, I simply advocate for people to read as much as possible, touch as much grass as possible, try to organize and contribute to leftist organizational structures, and continue to fight for improving material conditions.
100%. Organization, contribution, and advocacy are vital. Reading is always good. Only second to understanding in all senses.