Settler-Colonialism, the highest reaches of Imperialism in the modern era, the latest stages of Capitalism in decay, and a century of Red Scare Anticommunism.

Do note that Unions are merely a step in the right direction, ultimately Capitalism serves Capitalists and this doesn’t change until Capitalism is abolished.

Since when is Socialism a vow of poverty?

So you want to focus on some niche stuff? Leave out the stuff that would not change and currently causes most of the issues?

I gave examples, not the entire list, lol.

Why should this type of fashion, for example, even change in communism? People want to look different than others, better, prestige, blablabla many reasons that would not change.

Fast fashion isn’t fashion, it’s incredibly cheaply made garments made with environmentally dangerous methods for the cheapest possible clothing. When you have a society driven around profit, this begins to take hold, when you have a society driven around fulfilling needs, there isn’t an endless drive for more new clothes.

I ask again, how would communism make us sustainable? I do not see it. Some niche stuff is replaced by something else in communism, not worth mentioning. A new phone every year is bad, but not the big problem. People drive 13’500 miles per year on average in the USA, burning 10’000 barrels daily or 1 billion m³ each year, 3 m³ per person each year. Add to that all the fuel for heating homes and making electricity. That is our big problem.

Look at where the CO2 comes from. Heating, electricity, transport and agriculture alone are more than 50 %. Compare that to aviation and shipping, next to nothing. Even an of industry is nothing compared to that. How much are these 4 things supposed to be reduced with communism? And why?

I already said public transit and more efficient, ubanized housing. This is silly.

So of we just keep people poor… issue solved. Like someone in Africa or North Korea, they are not going to need more resources than what can be regenerated. Simply because they lack the means to do so.

You’re missing the mark, here. I am specifically referring to things like fast-fashion, trinkets, new phones every year, and other goods pushed on consumers not for their convenience, but to satisfy Capitalists.

If we assume a communism with the same level of technology, comfort, … how would we avoid the exact same issue? Why would people suddenly not drive their own car mostly alone? Heat their homes in winter, causing a big portion of global CO2 emissions by doing so?

Socialism and Communism would be more focused on public transit and urbanized environments.

The “end” result did align with the intent. The USSR, for example, never tried to jump straight to Communism. They were Marxists, they opted to go through Socialism.

Communism isn’t “doing Socialism for a while then collapsing into magical Communism arbitrarily.” It’s a long, drawn-out process of building towards Communism. Socialism wasn’t a temporary sacrifice, but a drastic improvement on previous conditions.

The states we have today have never identified their conditions as Communist, but as Socialist, with a stated goal of moving towards Communism.

Communes are Anarchist, not Marxist, so pretending only Communes have managed to accomplish what Marxist states set out to do is a drastic misunderstanding of Marxism, Communism, and Anarchism.

This is also greatly a misconception, redefining Communism to be anti-Marxist and pro-Anarchist is silly. Marxism is the largest and most historically relevent strain of Communist thought, denying that is pointlessly sectarian.

There have absolutely been true and authentic attempts at building Communism, just via Socialism. Denouncing these Socialist states for not being able to yet achieve global Communism is anti-Marxist idealism.

Because consumption greases the wheels of profit.

I am a Marxist, yes.

Hexbear doesn’t praise Putin, but they do praise Xi, quite a bit.

Ah yes, if a Communist is young, they are naiive, and if a Communist is older, they are cyncial and regressive.

The double-think is strong with you.

Where’s that Parenti quote?

“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.”

On the other hand it’s been about 20 years since I read the work of Marx and Weber. I had classes on social stratification, feminism, materialism, and conflict theory. I’m pretty rusty.

Critique of the Gotha Programme is a quick read on how Marx envisions the transition to Socialism and eventually Communism.

How do we put the genie back in the bottle when we released it so very long ago? Let’s try looking at children. Education would certainly help, but can you teach empathy without the help of the parent(s)? Even if the parental figures teach empathy and structured education enforces these teachings, we come to secondary groups. This would be groups like the child’s friends or peers.They are considered more important to childhood development after a certain age (12? Not the same for everyone of course maybe an average). If the members of these secondary groups do not value empathy, the child who was taught it by their parental figures and enforced by education will begin to value it less.

This is a very ideas-focused view of society. Largely, culture and values are shaped by Material Conditions amd Mode of Production. This is the concept of Base and Superstructure, the base being the material conditions and mode of production, and the superstructure being ideology and culture.

We move beyond class society through collectivization and Socialism. This society then moves on to Communism.

I don’t know the answers. Believe me I want fully automated post-scarcity space communism. I really want it. I just can’t see the way there.

Believe me, everyone wishes we could jump hundreds of years to higher-stage Communism. Anarchists even think we can approximate that now, which is a whole other school of thought. However, Socialism is a drastic improvement on Capitalism, and lower-stage Communism is a drastic improvement on Socialism as well. Progress should not be impeded because the target is far away, especially if the process of building it is itself progress.

China takes a dub.

Some instances on Lemmy are going through a Red Scare, I doubt they can explain.

Lemmy.world and Lemmy.ca tend to be right-leaning even if they have some Leftist comms. The fediverse still appeals to leftists, but liberals have their own enclaves.

According to Harvard in 2020, 95.5% do. That certainly isn’t 100%, but it’s pretty high, I would say.

You are the perfect person to ask, because you claimed Communism cannot work because “power corrupts” and “human nature.” I am not saying you are a Capitalist. Your ideas regarding Marxism are immaterial and vibes-based, which is why I am trying to get you to take a Materialist stance.

Why does power corrupt? How can representatives be held accountable? What determines “human nature?”

1. Power itself does not corrupt. People generally act in their material interests, and in Capitalism, this is dominated by the profit motive, like all class society. The bourgeoisie are focused on making profit, no more and no less. The Capitalist State is molded by the class in power, ie the bourgeoisie, and thus serves the interests of Capital. In an alternative, collectivized system, these same dynamics would be abolished, with a different set of challenges taking their place, such as the question of allocating labor.

2. Representatives can be held accountable via democratic measures, ie a representative democracy. Worker councils and parliaments can handle coordination and check against corruption.

3. Human Nature is determined by material conditions. Humans are thought to be competitive naturally because Capitalism is competitive, even though the average worker does not care, only the bourgeoisie do. In different Modes of Production, “Human Nature” appeared very different. In primitive Communism, for example, Human Nature was cooperative and communal, class society arose from technological advancements like the agricultural revolution.

You need organization, yes. What is “fair?” Why can’t there be democratic processes keeping these people in check? What does “human nature” have to do with this, does the local post office go rogue?

I understand that the basis of Capitalism is that it isn’t fair in any way, shape, or form, but why does that mean it’s better?

Why would “power corrupts” mean Communism can’t be fully implemented? What on Earth are you talking about, specifically?

Did the workers own their means of production? No. In fact, a lot of worker’s cooperatives were not only nationalized, but turned into the same kind of exploitative enterprises they were made to escape the corporate world, but this time it was in the hands of the state, and the factory had “this factory belongs to the workers” written on it.

The Workers did own the Means of Production via a Worker State. It was fundamentally not “the same kind of exploitative enterprises” because production was not done in service of profit and accumulation in the hands of the few, but for and by the workers. We see the effects of this with high housing rates, free healthcare, education, and extremely low poverty rates.

Those are often done under more “human-faced” capitalist states. These states are just social-autocracies: all the social benefits of social democracies, without any democracy, unless you call liking a dictator and their pet projects at gunpoint a “democracy”.

Every Socialist state has been democratic to some degree, believing the state is simply structuted entirely due to the whims of “powerful people” is laughably oversimplified. Social Democracies should be analyzed based on how they gained their resources. Social Democracy in the Global North is Imperialist, Social Democracy in the Global South is progressive, though not sufficient.

Running a worker state takes many cogs and many democratic movements, as compared with Capitalism where the bourgeoisie and the managers they employ have absolute say. It is a given that Capitalist employment is antidemocratic, when you measure only the State in Capitalism with the entirety of the economy and state in Socialism, without also acknowledging the utter lack of any democracy in the Capitalist economy, you are cherry picking.

Would my far-right government be considered a socialist country, because it boasts about record-high employment boosted by emmigration and the humiliating public employment program (work full 8+ hours at a state institute or street cleaner for half the minimum wage, so car makers don’t have to pay taxes), and about higher and higher wages that are nearly completely offset by inflation? Is stuffing the prime minister’s childhood friend with so much money he became a billionaire at the cost of smaller businesses going bankrupt a socialist move, just because he happens to be Hungarian (and also doesn’t have “berg” in his family name, nor has a “suspiciously large nose” as some insiders told me why a Hungarian business needed to go)? I guess critical support for Viktor Orbán then, since he hates the west and its human rights…

Unsure of what this tangent has to do with the topic at hand.