this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
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Man I wish North Americans were as scared of fascism and genocide as they are communism.
All the people with ties to Russia are fascists in this case.
All forms of extremism are bad.
Cool. Now, let's start getting into whether communism is "extremism" or not, rather than just begging the question.
Any talk of communism is a "red" herring when it comes to this topic. Russia isn't in any way officially, notionally, or superficially communist.
People still be calling Russia communist even though the Soviet Union famously fell under Boris Yeltsin
... and people calling themselves communist still leaping to its defence, for some inexplicable reason.
Yeah I don’t get that one either.
Maybe they lie...?
It’s more the idea that a lot of communists have that “anything that challenges American global hegemony = automatically good.”
Colloquially referred to as "Tankies". America = Bad, therefore Not America = Good mostly sums up Tankie takes, but more properly Tankies is a pejorative for authoritarian communists, usually apologists for China and the CCP nowadays. IIRC originally it referred to communist parties in Western countries that excused Soviet actions during the Prague Spring and such, although I'd say that is an obsolete term.
I didn't realize that was even open for debate....
That’s because western propaganda has destroyed your ability to learn or think critically about anything left of capitalism. It’s not really your fault, it’s trillions spent on creating that mentality.
No, it's because communism is an extremist ideology. You literally can't go farther left on the political spectrum than communism. That is the very definition of extremism.
By the way, capitalism is not a political ideology. It's an economic one. I am a capitalist, but a centrist Libertarian one. I used to consider myself left of center, but the insanity of the left since Oct 7, 2023, has caused me to shift right of center.
"Economics" aren't political?
Using the left and right spectrum is idiotic and not indicative of how extreme an ideology is. It’s like… 6th grade understanding of the nuances and philosophy of political, economic, and social issues and was created to make capitalism seem like a reasonable centrist position.
Actually, it sounds more like you're dismissing a standard political spectrum model to make communism sound less extreme than it is. Would you feel better if I used the word 'radical' rather than 'extreme'?
So extreme and radical to you are just “the further away an ideology is from our current form of capitalism, the more extreme it is” then?
No, extreme is the further away an ideology is from centrist/moderate ideologies. At one end of the spectrum is fascism, at the other is communism.
And who gets to dictate what defines a centrist or moderate ideology?
Moderate communists.
You contradict yourself.
By your own logic, if capitalism isn't a political ideology then neither is communism.
The fact that you wrote these in the same comment lets everyone know that either you are ignorant, or you are extremely misinformed on the subject at hand.
Communism is inherently a political/economic ideology. Capitalism is primarily an economic ideology with political implications.
You are misinformed. Communism has 'political implications' the same way that capitalism does. See the list of communist ideologies on Wikipedia for a primer.
Okay, it’s become clear that you really have no clue what you’re talking about. You have a good rest of your life man, I truly mean that.
Capitalism is indefensible from a libertarian perspective. A central libertarian tenet is that legal and de facto responsibility should match. However, the capitalist employer-employee contract inherently involves a violation of this tenet. The employer gets 100% of the legal responsibility for the positive and negative results of the enterprise. Despite workers' joint de facto responsibility for using up inputs to produce outputs, workers as employees get 0%
@canada
It's been a long time since I've read any of this stuff - do you have a reference for the claim about legal and de facto responsibility?
That being said, I would argue that they are not incompatible but rather that capitalism acts as a constraint on liberty. That being said, it is the economic system in which liberty is maximized relative to any other system. No doubt that's why it has persisted.
Liberty and longevity are not directly related. History has in fact shown the opposite. Like… capitalism is only a few hundred years old at most, and has only existed in its current form since the 18th century. Compare that to systems of fuedalism, monarchism, places that have had oppressive regimes since conception like Saudi Arabia. Also look at how our current form of capitalism has subsisted largely on the backs of usee countries being bled and made to kneel by usar countries, which is arguably the largest contributor to its perceived longevity.
Sorry, by "persisted" I didn't mean to imply that it's the oldest. More that it is surviving where other systems have failed.
Article: https://www.ellerman.org/inalienable-rights-part-i-the-basic-argument/
Video: https://youtu.be/c2UCqzH5wAQ
Either one introduces the argument against capitalism based on the liberal principle of imputation.
Economic democracy, a market economy where worker coop is the only firm legal structure, maximizes liberty much better than capitalism
@canada
Interesting theory. Does this exist on any large scale anywhere in the world?
https://www.nceo.org/articles/employee-ownership-100
https://www.usworker.coop/en/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
@canada
I understand that employee-owned companies exist (though I think it's rather telling that I haven't heard of any of them) but I thought this was a model for economic policy at the societal level. Those companies all exist within a capitalist economy.
The idea is to mandate worker coop structure on all firms.
It's not that telling. Without a worker coop mandate, there are collective action problems and market failures. It's harder for all the workers to cooperate to form a worker coop than an employer to hire up all the workers.
No society has a full worker coop mandate because the modern arguments for it were published in the 90s. Some countries do mandate some worker board representation and codetermination though
@canada
Mandating it doesn't seem to be consistent with individual liberty, though.
Forgive me for being pragmatic about this, but if this was such a good idea and consistent with the interests of the people, you wouldn't have to mandate it. This is how things would be done.
Political democracy also mandates legal non-transferability for voting rights. Would you allow people to sell or transfer their voting rights?
People prefer democratic firms: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/what-do-americans-want-from-private-government-experimental-evidence-demonstrates-that-americans-want-workplace-democracy/D9C1DBB6F95D9EEA35A34ABF016511F4
A mandate doesn't restrict any non-institutionally-described action as labor is de facto non-transferable. It only prevents fraudulently treating de facto responsible persons as legal non-responsible things.
Are we free when we can sell our freedom or when we can't even if we want to?
@canada
The only system compatible with full liberty is anarchy. But you stated that economic democracy is libertarian, and then proceeded to call for it to be mandated. Mandates are authoritarian, not libertarian.
Today's legal systems mandate that legal responsibility be non-transferable for crimes. The economic democracy position argues that legal responsibility should be generally non-transferable matching general non-transferability of de facto responsibility due to the principle of justice that legal and de facto responsibility should match. Not all mandates are authoritarian (e.g. a mandate that one must respect others' personal property). Employment violates workers' property rights
@canada
This comment demonstrates what the parent comment said.
Oh false equivalency, I wondered if you’d rear your stupid head here.
How is that a false equivalency?
I mean, this is blatantly obvious, but you’re probably American or some other western propaganda laden countries citizen, so I’ll let it slide. To compre Communism to Fascism is like comparing apples to some fruit that’s entire ideology is based on corporate slavery and racial inequality. You understand how apples have nothing to do with that and are not similar in any way. So to compare the two as if they are the same is a false equivalency.
The underlying ideologies are different, but I suspect the common feature the commenter was referring to is the practical tendency of both fascism and communism to develop into a totalitarian state.
And capitalism hasn't?
Capitalism certainly has flaws, but if you think the "oppression" in the US or western Europe is in any way comparable to that under the major fascist and communist regimes of Stalin, Mao or Hitler, I'm not sure what to say. We are from different planets.
It's funny how you equate capataliam with democratic there.
Authoritarianism is bad in all forms.
But there's a town in Texas that offers a $10,000 bounty to report me using the public bathroom.
https://apnews.com/us-news/texas-government-programs-lgbtq-general-news-fc1fb0ef003010fa961e64663a57b11d
But please tell me how I'm not oppressed.
And if you think Canada is innocent, what do you think we did to the natives in the name of capitalism?
What do you think the RCMP does with start light tours that are still happening?
It wasn't me that brought up capitalism. We were talking about forms of government (fascism and communism) and then someone else said, WhAt AbOuT CaPiTaLiSM. That said, there is quite a bit of overlap in practice between economic and governmental systems. But I digress.
I agree with you that authoritarianism is bad. That was my central point, in fact. Comparing fascism and communism is not necessarily a "false equivalence" insofar as all of the major 20th century examples of both converged on authoritarianism.
As for oppression, I'm not going to argue that no one is oppressed in the West. But I will stand by my assertion that the scale and degree of oppression under Mao, Stalin, and Hitler (the largest 20th century examples of communism and fascism) is not comparable to what trans people may be experiencing in some Texas town.
As for indigenous people, yes, historically the scale of the original genocide is certainly comparable to the communist and fascist regimes of the 20th century. However, it is also important to remember that over 90% of the indigenous people died naturally of diseases they had no immune defense against. It was inevitable given the level of medical technology of the time, much like the plague in Europe. The starlight tours specifically are shameful but actually illegal for the police to do. Those are not state-sanctioned actions, unlike Stalin's pogroms or Hitler's concentration camps. A better example for your case would be the residential school system, which was both state-sanctioned and very oppressive.
You keep saying it's not as bad as Hitler or mao, but then akwnoledge it has been?
This ignores atrocities that we did do in the time. Like the Alberta eugenics board. Just because the scale of people wasn't the same, doesn't mean it wasn't bad.
When do you think the last residential school closed? This is RECENT times.
It's not a suffering Olympics. It's not about the number of bodies, it's about the attitude of those who stood by and benefited from the system.
And just because the starlight tours are illegal, can you find one example of an officer who was prosecuted for it? Because if there's no punishment is it really illegal?
To sya they're incomparable is to ignore the people who are suffering, telling you it is.
I'm not sure what your point is. The argument is about whether there is a false equivalence between communism and fascism. You are veering way off topic into something I doubt you and I even disagree about. Yes, genocide is bad. Yes, authoritarianism is bad.
"All forms of extremism are bad." Is itself an extreme statement.