this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
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I remember like it was yesterday:
You could NOT travel anywhere except on very exceptional conditions and only in the communist countries of the communist block. Also being paid very poorly one could not really afford any travel!
You would not own anything and that did not make no one happy! The land, the house nothing was yours all was owned by the state.
You could not aford to pay for a car and you could theoretically buy a car in almost a lifetime using a social credit system which was bad and poorly implemented;
grocery stores were empty;
food was bad and very scarce;
We were getting in a line, in a row, the nights before when we had a rumor that the delivery trucks will come the next day. All the food was sold, based on a food ticket from the truck and the food products were never reaching the shelves in the grocery shop;
One family was only allowed to have only 1 bottle of of cooking oil and 1 pack of butter per MONTH, taken that ticket IF these would be available at the grocery store and if you got the ticket!
The quality of any product was very bad, but you would not notice because there was nothing to compare to;
The people had work, but most were just doing really just the minimum to get the payment which was not much and the quality of work was very poor in almost all industries. Also understand the timeline. In 1980's the kind of jobs that people worked today may not exist at all because of technology! So if you would have communism today, most people would have very limited types of work! (You will see soon... Say Hello to Artificial Inteligence!)
Most people were very corrupted, because they need to EAT so a lot of underground market was taken place for those who dared because:
IF you SAY or did ANYTHING which was not inline with the communist party you would be incarcerated and beaten to death...
I will stop here as there are so many other important aspects...
Lived in Romania for almost 50 years and I know how communism is so NO, THANK YOU!
**Also understand that even if you would have communism today it would not be the same type of communism as the TECHNOLOGY CHANGES EVERYTHING! **
I invite you to learn more about China's social credit system and WeChat app! Also look into T. digital id... it is at least "interesting": https://piped.video/watch?v=PxvNzzgoJX8&t=7
Hope you will find my insights helpful and keep this comment!
Be well!
Wait till you find out what conditions people are forced to live in under capitalism. The people who literally die from overwork in Amazon warehouses and have to piss in bottles because they can't even take a bathroom break. That's what your current lifestyle is built on.
The quality of works under communism was far less exploitative, and everyone was provided with the basic opportunities. That's why leaders in USSR all come from regular working families as opposed to being an oligarchy the way they are under capitalism.
Meanwhile, plenty of corruption to go around under capitalism that has profound impact on regular people. Here's a whole study illustrating how US government doesn't give a shit about what people in US actually want and represents the interests of the oligarchs first and foremost.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
And I'll guarantee you that your country is no better.
Meanwhile, nobody is arguing to have the same type of communism that existed in USSR. This was a first attempt at building a socialist system. There are always mistakes when you do something that's never been tried before. A lot can be learned and improved. And of course, today we can see China doing just that.
also like, food insecurity is ABSOLUTELY a thing in america, just because store shelves are full of food doesn't mean people can actually afford it.
That fact, in and of itself, should really be enough to discredit capitalism. It's so profoundly horrifying that we merrily deny people basic survival needs just because they can't afford it.
In fact, 26 million people in US are food insecure, and it was on the rise at the end of 2023 https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/poverty/4217016-food-insecurity-on-the-rise-census-data-show/ and this isn't exclusive to US either, nearly 23% of Canadians are food insecure https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canadian-income-survey-2022-results-1.7186033
all of this is literally happening under capitalism in my country, except most of us work 12 hour days and have to work really had to keep a job.
i wish the government let me live in any of the thousands of empty houses without the exorbitant rent we are forced to pay just to have a roof over our heads. travelling and good quality goods? pffffhahahahahahhahah
I sympathize. Quite a decent amount of the problems you mentioned were, unfortunately, very real problems and the conditions at the time (siege socialism and whatnot) made it hard to fix. I hope you don't believe that any sane Communist denies this. Also, yes, those who did try to expose corruption did face problems. Your insights are absolutely helpful to remind us that mistakes can absolutely happen and must be prevented at all costs.
The first generation of people who lived under Socialism experienced massive improvements in living standards (on a scale never seen before), but as their living standards grew, so did their expectations and demands, which Socialism at the time could not provide; the focus on heavy industry by the Eastern Bloc (to reach military parity with the West) took a giant toll in their economies and light industry and plenty of mistakes from within and heavily exacerbated from external pressure led to the demise of Socialism.
China has learned from the mistakes of the Eastern Bloc and look where it is now! It's not perfect and it still has ways to go in some aspects, but despite all this, it shows Socialism isn't dead and is again a global force.
Just like talking about the bad things is important, however, we must also recognize what Romania was before the Socialist era: It was an underdeveloped (effectively a third world country) Fascist dictatorship led by Ion Antonescu, a scumbag allied with the Axis.