Communism is when you get your work done, the output goes to the good of the group. It’s taken by the centralized power, then redistributed.
Capitalism is when you get your work done, you choose to sell or keep the output. Under capitalism, the scenario where someone else owns your work can only happen with your consent. It’s called “contracts”, and the consensual nature of contracts is why it’s called a “free market”.
Check out Marcuse's 1969 "Essay on Liberation":
"By virtue of its basic position in the production process, by virtue of its numerical weight and the weight of exploitation, the working class is still the historical agent of revolution; by virtue of its sharing the stabilizing needs of the system, it has become a conservative, even counterrevolutionary force. [...] In the advanced capitalist countries, the radicalization of the working classes is counteracted by a socially engineered arrest of consciousness, and by the development and satisfaction of needs which perpetuate the servitude of the exploited. A vested interest in the existing system is thus fostered in the instinctual structure of the exploited, and the rupture with the continuum of repression - a necessary precondition of liberation - does not occur."
i like to think of the economic trifecta as a triangle.
People often tend to conflate communism and socialism down into one plane, but i don't think they're similar enough, socialism is more inverse to communism than anything. It's also more closely related to capitalism than communism (the modern western conceptualization of socialism at least)
to put it bluntly, communism is a subset of socialism.
i'm not wrong? socialism and communism are often more similar to eachother than capitalism, in the sense that they tend not to like private capital, but modern socialism is more like capitalism if it thought private capital should be collective capital instead, given how entities corpos, and businesses tend to work.
Communism as people tend to refer to is the usual USSR type beat shit or mao's china, modern china is more akin to authoritarian capitalism than it is communism, even though they claim to be communist. Even so called "socialist european countries" tend to be capitalism but without private healthcare and education most of the time.
you must not be very familiar with the concepts of ideological frameworks.
Don't worry, I'm familiar with the concept of ideological frame works that clueless redditors learn in comment sections. I've also read enough actual political philosophy to know how wrong they are.
and modern political philosophy is much different than it was when the founding fathers were the ones writing it. The times change, it's important to keep that in mind.
Much like any government will, or at least it should be doing, to keep up with it's population needs.
I've heard that the idea for outsourcing labor came from observations American capitalists made of factories in the USSR, so maybe they're onto something /s
I used to live in central Louisiana. When I talked to the people I used to work with, it was very clear that they are in favor of what would be considered to be socialist. The MAGA folks really can be comrades if we just reach out to them like human beings and try to communicate to them on their level without being too condescending.
The hard part will be convincing them that people they don't like deserve basic human rights. The right wing religious propaganda has really taken hold of them in that regard.
We have to work harder to communicate with some of these people. There's definitely a lot of right wingers that are straight up gone(genuine fascists/neo nazis who know what they're doing), but there's a lot that are simply brainwashed or fear mongered. Instead of laughing at them we should be trying to bring them back to the right path.
But how do you do that? We can try to convince and provide all the evidence in the world and we still get met with "deep state" and get told almost every scientist and doctor is part of a secret pact to make us eat bugs.
To say nothing of how difficult it is to talk to people who would rather you didn't exist.
The hard part will be convincing them that people they don’t like deserve basic human rights. The right wing religious propaganda has really taken hold of them in that regard.
remember when mandela actually became president of south africa after spending 27 years in prison, he made a speech and said something like "the boers are no longer our enemy, they are our countrymen."
Basically, they are our enemy now, because they've fallen victim to the propaganda that's been fed to them by the television they watch, the online communities they frequent, the churches they go to and the radio personalities they listen to. But if one can reach out to them, talk to them and get them to listen and hear, then it might be possible to deprogram them from those hateful stances they hold against people who are not like them.
For example, one can try to talk to them about immigration by asking why they don't like immigration. they might respond like "the immigrants take our jobs", which is the lie that is told to them so that they want to fight other working class people instead of focusing that fight on the people who actually are responsible for their suffering: the wealthy.
remember when mandela actually became president of south africa after spending 27 years in prison, he made a speech and said something like “the boers are no longer our enemy, they are our countrymen.”
The best way to break someone out of a partisan media death spiral is to cut the power cord to their television.
I absolutely agree that there are a host of people in a gray zone of misinformation who can be pulled back from the brink. But I'm not multi-billion dollar media mogul capable of saturating their every waking hour with counter-programming. And I'd be foolish to assert I could undo in a few short dialogues what they've ingested after decades.
If you look at what the Feds did with TikTok, that's the real working strategy. Cut people off from a contrary media diet. Shut down radio stations. Starve out newspapers. De-tenure professors with unorthodox historical bias. K-Street Project any lobbyist who won't exclusively back your people. Purge political parties of anyone sympathetic to rival views. Blacklist the Dixie Chicks and get Donahue fired.
That's how you shape the public discourse.
Not by politely asking your 60-year-old uncle to turn down the Michael Savage Radio Hour for a minute and reconsider his white nationalist views.
the only reason to be Christian is to be in the closet with a priest
The other two were definitely musts though you would see “n-words beware” “no n-words allowed” graffiti on signs and others of that ilk. Even today you will find Swastika drawn on things around town
The MAGA folks really can be comrades if we just reach out to them like human beings and try to communicate to them on their level without being too condescending.
"... reach out to them like human beings and try to communicate to them on their level..."
So which is it? Are we supposed to treat them like human beings able to have a rational, reasonable, and logical discussion, or do we communicate on their level of bigotry, hatred, threats, and violence?
How do I lower myself to a level that wholeheartedly believes that certain races are subhuman and don't deserve rights, that females have a place and that place is subservient to men, or that homosexual people should be put to death?
I get that it's distasteful to give anyone their due when they have hate in their heart.
That said, people are mutli-faceted. We can engage with one another on one or many axes, and GP is suggesting that we pick and choose the ones where there is common ground. The key is to be mindful that this person is not your friend, but when it comes to some specific political point, they are aligned with you. Demonstrating that this is possible and fruitful is key to fighting back against polarization and black/white thinking.
The alternative is a permanently divided political landscape where everyone and everything is deadlocked, and we argue about wedge topics forever.
Hey, I hear ya - some people really are seeing the world upside-down.
I'm not saying it's easy nor that everyone is reachable. But what I am saying is that a lot of powerful forces have a vested interest in keeping everyone divided. Whose game are you gonna play? Yours or theirs?
if we just reach out to them like human beings and try to communicate to them
That's going to be hard while they are pushing you into a mass grave.
You're not wrong - but you're ignoring the fact that this only applies to a certain amount of them. Unfortunately, there is also a portion of them that can only be reached through the use of force.
I'm a big advocate for the idea that we need to start selling "manly socialism."
I want to see grainy low contrast posters of a guy in wrangler jeans posed next to an F-150 with a sledgehammer over his shoulder and text that says "You're really such a pussy that you just let some rich asshole in Redmond walk all over you? Real men unionize."
I want to sell solar power to midwesterners with video ads of rugged manly men getting off the grid. "My daddy taught me to do everything with my own two hands. Instead of suckling on the teat of that big ol power grid, I get my own from God's beautiful bounty."
I want videos of church goers saying "I'm voting for public healthcare because God told me to lift the poor and the weary."
I think there's real legs to this. Meet people where they are.
(And before anyone starts, I have no desire to break bread with these people. They hate me and everything I am. I have no illusions about that. But for real change to happen, it takes a village; even the parts of the village you want absolutely nothing to do with. I don't have to break bread with them to get them pulling in the right direction; I just have to help them see what's in their best interest.)
I'd absolutely go to a place where I can hang out with dudes who also love shooting guns, eating sausages and doing yoga. And I don't even really do any of those things.
we laugh, but this is just incredibly sad. everyone is succeptible to propaganda (even you) and sadly the richest people have used that fact, plus a decent chunk of cash, to manipulate the most succeptible, least educated, and least likely to encounter counter-propaganda of those into believing their lie.
does that forgive their crimes? fuck no. but it speaks to the deeply corrupt power of capital and white supremacy, how it is used to keep down the very base that claims to support it.
Our biggest problem is that we started fighting back 20 years too late.
Right wing radio has been polluting their minds for decades and calling us Satan lovers and baby killers, and all we did was watch the Daily Show and chuckle away at the "dumb people"
Well... Those dumb people, poisoned by decades of propaganda, came of voting age, have infected all levels of government and now we're standing here with a pikachu face.
We have a huge uphill battle and it's going to be very hard, particularly because progressives are so easily fractured. We put up these ridiculous Puritan tests that no person can survive and we keep losing ground while the right lines up lockstep behind their candidate no matter how revolting, because 20 years of propaganda has thought them that no matter how vile Trump is, Biden must be JUST AS vile as him and even worse on top of it.
I tried my damnedest to explain to Nebraskans that the whole bud light controversy was hollow capitalist marketing but they're still convinced that the beer people are pedophiles now.
See, cuz, its communist because they control everything and the people at the top get all the money, and they use the money to influence society by paying off politicians!
It’s definitely all about attitude. Republicans have systematically worked to demonize and defund education. Nobody cares to be actually correct, or to find real truth.
They just want to listen to their own echos. They want to be pet and pat on the head and reassured for every hateful, lazy thought they’ve ever had
They get into the work force, (factory, farm, other blue collar jobs that are being exploited by corps) where they all complain about how stressful and seemingly fruitless their day-to-day lives are, and blame whatever the nearest and easiest target is.
Literal witch hunts. All the while getting bent over by the actual enemies - the cheats, the hateful, the liars, the lazy, the greedy, etc.
I mean ffs practically every religion out there points this shit out as bad, and yet everyone willingly sucks these types of awful people off, despite the fact. It’s mind numbing
edit: Fixed some shitty, aggro wording against my fellow working class people. that was shitty.
Please don't equate a lack of formal education with this shit, in fact they probably did quite well in high school since it's more about conformity than education anyway.
I think you're right, this was more of an insult than it was stating facts, which isn't fair and just clouds my message - something I continue to struggle with. Thanks for keeping me honest, I'll make an edit shortly here
It was common where I grew up well into the 90s for people to go on about how seat belts “trap” you in a car during a wreck… as opposed to flinging you from it to die on the road instead, I guess?
Everyone has a story about a guy who got flung clear. I've never met anyone who has actually been flung clear. I do have a friend who got trapped in a car after it flipped when her hand was pinned by a broken seat. But the seat belt saved her life.
Even more basic - I’ll bet none of those people had been in an accident serious enough to eject them in the first place. Who needs a seatbelt when you can just hold on?
One of my close friends from elementary school was a good argument for seatbelts. She lost her Dad when he was ejected from his Jeep while off-roading, and it rolled over him
I am personally a good argument for seat belts. I nearly died in an accident because I wasn't wearing one in the back seat. Luckily, I bounced off on the driver's seat, breaking half of my ribs in the process, instead of being ejected from the car.
A lot of that was infomercial TV grifting too. There were so many companies selling "emergency tools" to cut seatbelts and shatter windows a few years ago.
I thinks it’s really just normal human resistance to change. I do remember being resistant to seatbelt requirements, mostly because it seemed so unnecessary and uncomfortable.
Even knowing the statistics, I didn’t have family who had been in an accident where the seatbelt would have helped - plus of course I wore a seatbelt (in front). It was interesting that being in the back seat was always different somehow, but you also don’t always have inertial reel or adjustable belts, so I wonder if it comes down to convenience and comfort
