/lit/ - Literature

>>17589746
Fool, we’re no longer haunted by the past!

>>17589746
hey! I have that cap!

Why would they insult Jesus like this?

>>17589746
I think conservacucks and neolibshits will seethe so hard against gommunism and ebil socialism that people will revive socialist ideas by solely reaacting to blind seething. Retards who keep btfoing communism by facts and logic are ironically those who will save the idea of communism

>failed
https://sci-hub.st/10.2190/AD12-7RYT-XVAR-3R2U
hmmmmm curious, almost like the porkys have a material interest in lying about the success of their ideological enemies. i have never in my life seen an analysis of why communism ""failed"" that took the real world conditions of the country in question into account.

>/lit/ - Literature

>>17590700
>https://sci-hub.st/10.2190/AD12-7RYT-XVAR-3R2U
read the book, faggot

>>17590700
>never seen proof a communist country failed
>no communist country has survived, except North Korea
LOL
Yeah, porkys are in denial

>>17590774
read the study, faggot, you might learn something
>>17590780
you are strawmanning, factually wrong and seem to be incapable of understanding the post you are replying to, try again

>>17590848
You seriously believe that the socialist authoritarian regimes weren't falsifying the data? You're an idiot

>>17590707
>it's not literature if it isn't marxist

>>17590848
You seriously believe that the authoritarian socialist regimes weren't falsifying the data in that study? You're a gullible idiot

>>17590700
Hmmmm curious, almost like tankies have to resort to a shoddy study from 1986 to defend their failed ideology.

https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/j6lb0u/can_we_debunk_this_study_about_poor_socialist/g7zgkfb/?context=3

>>17589746
>This kills the socialist
>cover literally says socialism never dies

>>17590900
if you had spent even a few seconds skimming over the study you would have seen that the data comes from the world bank. hardly an unbiased source, but absolutely not biased towards socialism.
>>17591043
>tankies
oh fuck off
>reddit.com/r/neoliberal
are you fucking kidding me? is this a joke?
if not, many of the points made in that post are fair. the study is outdated and many of the classifications are weird. however, in typical liberal fashion, the redditor completely neglects to do any analysis on why those 13 socialist countries are where they are (or were in 1986), which completely invalidates his point of not comparing any socialist countries to the colonial, slave mongering superpowers listed.
of course comparing any western european country to cuba or vietnam would be ridiculous and if you cant see why you are delusional. you wouldnt compare cuba or vietnam to current somalia either.

this is the problem with your thinking, you splurt out npc-like pre programmed responses like "ohhh the ussr doesnt exist anymore" as if it were an actual argument, never doing any materialist analysis. maybe try reading a book?

>>17590848
>thinks socialism works
>thinks a single cherry-picked study disproves history so recent that living people have experienced it
>thinks a single cherry-picked study proves anything
checks out

>>17591172
>the redditor completely neglects to do any analysis on why those 13 socialist countries are where they are
No need to do that when the classifications are all fucked up, as you admitted.

das kapital btfo capitalism

>>17591255
>>17591299
liberals are literally incapable of forming an original thought, incredible
idk why i even come here anymore

>>17591328
I love how your only line of defense against your failed ideology is an extremely flawed study from 1986, which you openly admit is flawed. And you're the one telling me I don't think for myself? Way to go, bud.
>of course comparing any western european country to cuba or vietnam would be ridiculous and if you cant see why you are delusional.
Tell me why it's ridiculous.

>>17591328
They literally weren't able to find socialist countries at the highest income levels. Ever wonder why that is? HAHAHAHAHA

>>17591401
because the money went into improving infrastructure and becoming a first world nation

>>17591435
incorrect. it's because the inherent structural flaws in command-economy socialism (knowledge problem, calculation problem) prevent a nation from growing wealthy ever

>>17591435
socialists don't even understand what "income" is or how it works lmfao priceless

>the absolute state of leftists

Now that Socialism has been shown for the utopian illusion that it is, what is the way forward to deal with Industrialization, Corporatism and Alienation?

>>17591587
dismantle walmart

>>17591587
Have you heard of the Third Position?

>>17591587
ethnofascist space empire.
westerners forming one state.
leaving this rock behind as the niggers and the chinks cover it, taking off in our spaceships to the sound of the final countdown.
manifest galaxy.
neoclassical aesthetics.

>>17591856
Third position is just Socialism but incoherent (Anti-Capitalism without Internationalism), What we needed is a genuine alternative.

>>17589951
>coping this hard
No one will buy your koolaid. Socialism is appealing to lazy retards and naive young people. That's about it. The lazier people get, the more they think a society based on free gibs will work.

>>17590780
>What is Veitnam and Cuba?

>>17591915
You want more niggers?

>>17589951
Lol no. What's happened is that internet access got spread around and the people with the most free time are dumb fuck know nothing children who socialists groom into their ideology. Most people who call themselves socialists online aren't even really socialist. They have no clear idea what they're advocating for other than more worker power and a stronger welfare state, which makes them confused radical libs if anything.

>>17591962
Cringe, polacks are unable to say anything of value

>>17589951
No. Even Sweden tried Socialism and it failed them.

Sweden.

Socialism is for ignorant idealists who can't accept when a bad idea doesn't work, it's not because it wasn't tried hard enough or wasn't "real" X: it's because it's a bad idea.

>>17589746
I thought socialism killed the socialist

Socialism won, though. The international communist movement put enough pressure on capitalist states that they had to enact sweeping reforms. Now we have our mixed economy with welfare state, best of both worlds. Thanks socialism.

>>17589951

>>17592074
you don't live in reality. your vision of the world is despicable.

>>17593877
thanks, great contribution

>>17591923
>>17592088
im not even socialist you dumb mongoloids, stop being paranoid for one second

>>17589746
>>17591255
>>17591401
>>17591460
>>17591587
>>17591923
>>17592060
>>17592088

The problem
>overthrows democratically elected socialist leader
with socialism
>funds right-wing military coup
is that it works
>installs fascist puppet government
in theory
>places economy destroying trade sanctions along with allies on newly formed socialist government, i.e. Venezuela
but it doesn’t work
>literally just fucking invades, i.e. Vietnam
in practice.
>still gets their ass handed to them

Americans are more obsessed with socialism then actual socialists are.

>>17591915
how does that make it incoherent exactly

>>17589746
What's the difference between housing in the UK and a socialist breadline?
Both denote an unfair distribution of an essential resource as well as an economy based upon unproductive capital.
It seems to me that the majority of wealth is inherited. Why should I not try and destroy it? What's the pay off?
In ancient sieges the attacker would declare a debt jubilee.
I'm going to open the gates to whoever pays me off, sick of it all rly m8s.

>>17594871
Ah yes. Gulags, the epitome of basic human decency.

>>17594830
The USSR and pre-capitalist China failed without CIA intervention. Maybe you're the brainlet.

>>17589746
>>17590900
>>17591255
>>17591358
>>17591401
>>17591483
>>17591587
>>17591923
>>17592060
>>17592088
Remember, the only reason you spent your childhood in a school instead of a factory is because of the radical communist and socialist activists of the 1920’s. Same goes for the minimum wage, safety regulations, the 8 hour workday, paid overtime, and the entire concept of the weekend. All capitalism did was make you fat and addicted to porn.

>>17591860
that's hot but instead we're actually the slave class building the New Space Jerusalem

>>17594914
Forgot pic

>>17594830
>>17594871
>>17594914
We're being brigaded by commies. God help us.

>>17594911
Because both of societies were, by definition, not socialist. Stalinism and Maoism both have far more in common with Fascism than anything Marx or Engels had in mind.

>>17594896
>Both denote an unfair distribution of an essential resource as well as an economy based upon unproductive capital.
Which is why we need an LVT to tax the value of land as much as possible while leaving improvements on it completely untaxed.

>>17594941

This is where contemporary socialists like you become evasive and talk about lofty ambitions rather than tangible institutional characteristics. Real socialism, you claim, is a democratic socialism from below, a socialism which democratises economic life, and ensures that wealth and power are evenly shared. Real socialism puts ordinary working people – not technocrats, dictators or party elites – in charge. Apart from its vagueness, this description contains two gigantic leaps of faith.

1. Contemporary socialists assume that the autocratic, stratified character of previous (and remaining) socialist regimes was deliberate. Socialist politicians could have established worker-run grassroots democracies, but chose not to do so. They could have established systems in which power would be vested in the hands of ordinary workers, but they did not want to. Establishing an authentic workers’ democracy, then, is merely a matter of political will.

2. Contemporary socialists appear to assume that a democratised, participatory version of socialism would not just be more humane, but also economically more successful. Autocratic socialism failed, but democratic socialism would have worked just fine, in terms of economic performance.

‘Giving workers ownership over the means of production’ is just an abstract aspiration, not a tangible description of an economic system. What does this mean? In a society with a population of over 60 million people (such as the UK), how would ‘the workers’ manage ‘their’ means of production collectively? How would I be able to meaningfully exercise control over ‘my’ 60 millionth part of a steel mill or a car factory? It’s hard to say.

In 2021, we have still not seen a socialist experiment which has not, sooner or later, descended into authoritarianism, but socialists like you remain convinced that there is no deeper reason for that. In your account, socialism has just not been properly tried – but it could be tried any time. It is merely a matter of willpower.

When contemporary socialists talk about ‘extending democracy to the economy’ and ‘democratising every aspect of society’, they are not being dishonest. That is their aspiration. But the point they miss is that this has always been the aspiration, and the promise, of socialism. There was never a time when socialists aspired to create stratified societies, in which power would be concentrated in the hands of a technocratic elite. Much less did they aspire to create police states that relied on terror, torture, forced labour and mass murder for their very survival. Socialist experiments ended up that way, but they were not intended to be that way. (1/2)

>>17595051
In 1921 Stalin originally opposed coercive, militaristic methods to enact socialism:

“There are two methods: the method of coercion (the military method), and the method of persuasion (the Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies 42 trade-union method). […] The mistake Trotsky makes is that he underrates the difference between the army and the working class, he […] tries […] to transfer military methods from the army into […] the working class. […]”

Or take the original meaning of the term ‘Soviet Republic’. A ‘soviet’ was originally simply a democratically elected workers’ council based at a factory, and a Soviet Republic was originally meant to be a semi-direct grassroots democracy, in which these workers’ councils would form the main building blocks. The idea was that all political power would ultimately be derived from local workers’ assemblies. This idea was never formally abandoned: on paper, that was how the Soviet Union worked. When contemporary socialists talk about a non-autocratic, non-authoritarian, participatory and humanitarian version of socialism, they are not as original as they think they are. That was always the idea. This is what socialists have always said. It is not for a lack of trying that it has never turned out that way.

Socialism does not always have to lead to industrial-scale murder and terror. The horrors of Stalinism, Maoism and the Khmer Rouge were extreme even by socialist standards. The second half of the Soviet Union’s history was nothing like as bad as the first half. Other Warsaw Pact countries were repressive, but not genocidal. But socialism could never be anything other than a technocratic, hierarchical command-and-control system. The claim that the Warsaw Pact countries were not ‘really’ socialist, because they were not parliamentary democracies with free and fair elections, misses the point. Even if they had been parliamentary democracies, this would not have changed their ultra-technocratic character, because their parliaments, such as they were, did not play much of a role in the economic planning process anyway. (And as F. A. Hayek explained, they could not have). Five-Year Plans were drafted by expert commissions, under instructions from the upper tiers of the executive branch of government, and then rubberstamped by parliament. (2/3)

>>17595058
It is easy to see why the German Democratic Republic’s ruling party (or its counterparts in other socialist countries) never allowed a free and fair democratic election: they would have lost, and they knew it. This explains the GDR’s dictatorial character. But it does not explain its technocratic character. It would not have threatened the party’s position of power to allow public participation in the planning and running of the economy. On the contrary: this would, if anything, have strengthened its power, because it would have given the system a veneer of democratic legitimacy. The party could have neutralised parts of the pro-democratic resistance movement, and steered the public appetite for democracy into safe channels. (‘Safe’ as in ‘safe from the party’s perspective’.) They did not do it, because it cannot be done.

What was briefly tried was workers’ participation in the running of state-owned enterprises, via democratically elected workers’ councils. But a centrally planned economy cannot allow meaningful autonomy at the local level, for the simple reason that this would disrupt the plan. (3/3)

>>17589746
>Calling Comunism, Socialism.
The wrong buzzword that instantly discredits you.

>>17595051
>>17595058
>>17595066

>>17594941 BTFO, holy shit

>>17589746
Sure socialism doesn't work, but we're about to find out if reverse socialism does (ie the means of production own the government)

>>17594925
snowflake

>>17589746
Democratic socialist Nordic countries are proof of concept. No true economic/governmental system will be wholly dictated by a one-way policy.

Also aren't you referring to communism, socialists are the Jews of the political world, even Hitler betrayed them.

>>17595206
Nordic countries are market capitalist societies with large welfare states

The concept of a "failed idea" is nonsense. Every socialist scheme isn't cosmically doomed to fail. Only a moron would make such a generic and unprovable claim.

>>17595206
Denmark is 8th on the heritage foundation's, a conservative think tank's, economic freedom scale, and Iceland is 13th, while the U.S. is 17th. Finland is at 20th place while Sweden is 22nd. The nordic countries that generate income through capitalist means which is then used to fund a robust safety net. But the engine driving it is all is capitalism.

>>17595240
If an economic model fails once, twice, three times or four times, the claim that it was a good idea in principle, which has just been badly implemented, need not be implausible. Poor implementation can ruin the best economic policy ideas. If it fails for an eighth, a ninth and a tenth time, without there being a single positive counterexample, the claim begins to lose its plausibility.

>>17589951
"Socialism" amounts to nothing more than an exhortation to be nice nowadays. Marxism and its offshoots are a dinosaur relegated to a few irrelevant scholastics in the academy - a product of the 19th Century and industrialization and irrelevant outside of that context. All Communist countries adopted state capitalism or are North Korea (which is on the way to adopting state capitalism).

>>17595274
Dude your economic system is failing too much.
Dude you're talking 1 or 2 failures that's cool man, you still got an economic system.
But you talking 80, 90 failures? That's too many failures dawg, you gotta ease up on the failures, bring in some independent market functions

>>17595338
This

Everyone who isn't socialist has basically wised up to the term just being conflated contemporarily as a banner for neoliberal progressivism, or at the most small scale hippie tier communism. There is no political threat of actually nationally degenerating into a centrally planned economy because of a bunch of autistic undergrads vaguely espouse it. Steal their iPhone and suddenly they're pro-private property. But this doesn't mean the culture war is less real, or they're not just gaslighting unwittingly for actual marxists, or that welfare within capitalism pipelining wealth to the nogs isn't bad enough.

I recommend this for a low IQ rundown makes the same points as OP abeit with occasional libertarian cucking

>>17591587
Unironically traditionalist Christian conservationist libertarianism.
Anti-degeneracy
Anti-fascist
Anti-communist
Anti-materialist

There are lot retards in this thread. Socialism and Communism are the thing. Socialism is first phase of communism; where labor time determines what goods one receives from the common plan; communism is the higher stage where goods are awarded according to need when abundance makes it possible. If you want to know what this could look like, in practice, I recommend you review the Maoist Peoples Communes, the Venezuelan Communes, and the current Communes in Rojava. Historically, I would also recommend you read into the communes of Catalonia.

Kill all americans.

>>17596789
Copy that.

>>17589951
Call him an idiot, but this guy gets the 21st century.

>>17594893
Because in a global capitalist economy a single socialist economy wouldn't work

>>17594914
>Remember, the only reason you spent your childhood in a school instead of a factory is because of the radical communist and socialist activists of the 1920’s. Same goes for the minimum wage, safety regulations, the 8 hour workday, paid overtime, and the entire concept of the weekend. All capitalism did was make you fat and addicted to porn.
Complete delusion and sophistry. You can't use reforms in the framework of liberal democracy as an argument for Communism being a good system. All of this^ is Capitalism.

>>17595889
>Anti-degeneracy
Pure superstition, without freedom or love there can be no other freedoms.
>Anti-fascist
>Anti-communist
This simply specifies what the ideology is not.
>Anti-materialist
Religious catchword for prioritizing the imaginary over the real.

>>17594871
>basic human decency

>>17598133
I'm personally much less frustrated with people that use verbiage like "basic human decency" because at least they're not using concrete political terminology like "basic human rights" incorrectly for the sake of removing any chance of discourse without a 45-minute debate about semantics.
And then you press them further and they say
>"oh, well my definition of 'right' is [describes the opposite of a right]"
If you want to claim socialism falls under an indefinable trait like 'decency' then go ahead, at least you're honest about the subjectivity of your statement, and not trying to mask your stupidity behind entitlements that mysteriously come at the cost of everyone else. Those people need to be sent to Hobbesian reeducation camps, my first order of business when I become the leviathan

>>17598264
nice.

>>17598016
What a brainlet post.

>>17598264
What the fuck the opposite of a right?

>>17598316
Something you can only acquire through the use of extensive government or other third party intervention at the partial expense of an actual right (eg freedom of speech, freedom to do whatever you want, right to defend your life at any expense, right to all of the fruits of your labor)
Socialism is the opposite of a right because it requires a sizeable sacrifice of multiple rights I just stated. That's not to say socialism (or other government programs) aren't "worth" the partial sacrifice in rights, but it's important to be honest about the negotiation going on between the government and the people.

*powerbombs the socialist*

Bump

>>17598328
/thread

Social democracy is the best solution

>>17597992
all these^ are concessions that had to be forced out of the capitalists, creating countless martyrs and massacres. while they exist in capitalism now, the direct antithesis to capitalism and compatible tinking is the reason they exist.
outside of the sheer progress of the productive forces, all of the amenities we have today in the imperial core exist IN SPITE of capitalism.

>>17589746
>as he types on gov created internet

>>17594830
>>places economy destroying trade sanctions along with allies on newly formed socialist government, i.e. Venezuela
>>places economy destroying trade sanctions along with allies on newly formed socialist government, i.e. Venezuela
>>places economy destroying trade sanctions along with allies on newly formed socialist government, i.e. Venezuela
>economy destroying
>economy destroying
>economy destroying
>economy destroying

As if it wasn't already in free fall

>>17590700
>socialism provides a better quality of life than capitalism
lel

>>17600802
Yes, the king has shiny toys. And?

>>17600827
the capitalist king has shiny toys, the communist king is forced to import shiny toys from the capitalist king

>>17595174
poopoo peepee

>>17595274
Entirely true. I don't know how people could possibly believe in a system that has failed over and over again. Just look at Somalia, Chad, Niger, Guatemala, Mexico, Papua new guinea, Pakistan, almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, the middle east, etc. It's even managed to put what were formerly some of the most prosperous countries in the world, like America on the path to becoming third world countries where only the elite can afford basic services. What I'm saying is if Socialism has 'failed', so has Capitalism. Also you sound like a pseud who can't write a post without checking a thesaurus for every other word.

>>17601151
>Just look at Somalia, Chad, Niger, Guatemala, Mexico, Papua new guinea, Pakistan, almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, the middle east, etc.
Almost all of the third world is better off now than it was in 1990.

>>17601151
Those countries are getting richer every year because of free markets you numskull.

>>17598264
>entitlements that mysteriously come at the cost of everyone else
Can you niggers write a single post, or even form a single original thought, independent of a nonsensical right wing meme.

>>17598328
>freedom of speech
I'm so glad capitalism allows me to use my freedom of speech without worrying about being fired from my job or banned from a social media platform for not calling a man in a wig a woman, or anything else Zucc dislikes.
>freedom to do whatever you want
In the minority of your waking hours where your boss isn't dictating every aspect of your existence.
> right to all of the fruits of your labor
Making a fraction of what your boomer boss makes sitting around browsing facebook

>>17601177
Some third world shithole being slightly better off than it was 30 years ago can't be called success.

>>17589746
Oh boy, another book about how Stalin killed 57759395756389485774 people, how illuminating

>>17597965
that's why pan-europeanism took root in third position circles

>>17601516
read the book, it's not about that

https://iea.org.uk/themencode-pdf-viewer-sc/?file=/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Niemietz-Socialism.pdf&settings=111111011&lang=en-GB#page=&zoom=75&pagemode=

>>17589746
What about corporate socialism? They are people too you know.

>>17601609
The state should avoid picking winners and losers as much as is practicable.

>>17600802
Was the Mercedes as easily affordable to citizens of the west as the Trabant was to eastern germans?

>>17589951
like you already radicalised half the west to Nazism by being the most disgusting commies imaginable?

Leftists need to get off this board now

>>17590700
yes, completely utterly inarguably failed.

>>17601344
>Some third world shithole being slightly better off than it was 30 years ago can't be called success.
Yes it can. Improvement is a kind of success, isn't it?

>>17601344
>entitlements that mysteriously come at the cost of everyone else
>independent of a nonsensical, right wing meme
I don't have "some other way to put it" that's the way it is when people - regardless of political affiliation - call a social program or government action a "right." They're calling it a right when enacting it costs portions of our rights.
>trying to prove me wrong by showing how capitalist democracies limit freedom
Literally every multiperson system, including the capitalist companies and democratic governments function off of the citizens partially sacrificing their rights for the sake of the sovereign (CEO/board of directors or federal government). capitalist companies are definitely overstepping their boundaries as they're violating the "private" part of "private" company by acting as the wrongthink police for the government.
There's nothing on paper to say a socialist system can't establish a proper balance between rights being given by citizens and protections/privileges being offered to them, but like >>17595338 said,
>80, 90 failures? That's too many failures

>>17601852
the trabant wasn't easily affordable to eastern germans. 1 trabant carried 3 generations. in west germany every nuclear family had its own car or even 2 cars. and mercedes or volkswagen. not shitty 50s-tier trabants

>>17601325
China is getting richer every day because it's national socialist incited of being capitalist

>>17603281
China is a state capitalist society. A far, far cry from Maoism.

>>17589746
>class analysis isn’t relevant you guys! It’s epic monarchy time!

>>17603289
>state capitalist

That's kind of the point I was making. It's fascist in every way you might take the term.