GarbageShoot

joined 2 years ago
[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Firstly, I thought it was a moneyless society. What do the so-called businesses operate with? Secondly, owning land is not the same as using land ownership to extract a rent from people who don't own land, which is what a landlord is. You're asking an economic question, so economic relations are important!

I can't think of any societies that emphasize individual rights that aren't liberal

Genuinely, how hard are you thinking? Everywhere from Ancient Greece to Medieval Ireland to every iteration of China (except Japanese occupation) had personal rights.

"Emphasize" here is a weasel word, but can you really say it about the darling of neoliberalism, America? America abuses more rights abroad than any other country, so I guess you mean American denizens. Oh, but non-citizens get treated horribly, especially illegal immigrants but also immigrants in general, so you must just mean citizens. Then again, prisoners in America are kept in conditions consistent with its own definition of slavery, which is why there's a cutout in the Thirteenth Amendment to permit just that, so I guess non-criminal citizens? Of course, being homeless in quite a lot of America is de-facto criminal and the homeless suffer heinous abuse by the cops with little recourse, so I guess it's actually the housed, non-criminal citizens. Speaking of the cops, they kill over a thousand people every year, something that would be called "summary execution" if it was done by America's enemies. Do I need to keep going? And mind you, this is all at the relative zenith of human rights in America, ignoring chattel slavery, Jim Crow, the various forms of patriarchal domination, disenfranchisement of non-land-owners, and so on.

What I'm saying is that your definition needs work.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago (10 children)

Does the Federation really have private property? Are there landlords and business tyrants? Or does it just have personal property, things a person owns for their own personal use?

Personal rights also aren't monopolized by liberalism, as much as neoliberal media tells you it is so. Personal rights also existed in classical slave societies, under feudalism, and yes, under every Marxist state (I don't know about the weirdo ""communist"" ones like Peru or Cambodia)

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It's amazing how people just make things up. I genuinely have no idea where you got these definitions unless it was some hole on Reddit or similar.

What manages the means of production if not a government? Saying "the people" is as hollow as the US talking about "Freedom" and "Democracy". "The people" cannot merely project their will into the aether and have it realized, they need some method of organization. They need to be able to administrate complex systems rather than just hang out in "primitive communism but with high technology somehow". Whatever that system is and whatever you call it, that's a government. In a system of democratic government that administers things, the difference between "the people" owning things and the government -- here an organ that exists only so the people can manage the means of production -- owning them is immaterial.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 4 points 3 months ago

If you don't want to start a political argument, that's not the way to do it.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 7 points 3 months ago (13 children)

One needs to be careful with the word "liberal", because it means very different things in different contexts (in large part due to political parties identifying themselves as "liberal"). In the stricter political-philosophical sense, liberalism is very closely tied with capitalism and the "freedom" to own things as private property (market allowing) and do what you want with it.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 25 points 3 months ago (4 children)

The most textbook definition of communism as a political-economic organization (rather than an ideology) is that of a "stateless, classless, moneyless society."

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 6 points 3 months ago

What happens to pensions/retirement savings

These are still paid. Socialism is concerned with the means of production, not what amount to bank accounts.

land ownership

If it's a personal residence, it's cool. If it's a business's privately-owned land, it's up for grabs if the local community has a better use for it

inheritance

See the above distinctions. Money is secondary and personal property is fine, private property is liable to be taken.

the apartment your are renting out to pay for your own rent

Either the cost of your rent is dramatically reduced or your housing is turned into some type of cooperative, so there's no need to exploit someone else to make rent.

I would like to encourage you to read Engels' "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific".

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 12 points 5 months ago

I think people jump to "Read On Authority" to quickly, a behavior that amounts to scripture-quoting, but

I just threw it into chatgpt, I think I understand now. It's basically saying that some level of authority is necessary for society to function (which I wouldn't have argued against otherwise).

chatgpt sucks and has demonstrated that again here. On Authority essentially argues that a socialist revolution 1: is itself a monumental exercise of authority and 2: requires authority to be protected when it exists in a world fundamentally hostile to it. There are some ancillary arguments about command structures, but overall it is written in opposition to anarchist dogmatism about "Authority" being an evil thing that must be discarded.

I'll let someone else unpack the "Stalinist Russia" part

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Unfortunately for your ideology, most Chinese people support their government:

https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf

How do you reconcile this? Shall we trot out some paternalisms about "brainwashing" next?

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 9 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Do you have anything but the most condescending and one-sided "solidarity" for a people who support their government?

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 14 points 8 months ago (12 children)

Were the trade unionists the ones immolating unarmed soldiers and stringing up their corpses?

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