I'm theory, yes. In practice the idea of socialism has been hijacked and subverted by the same ruling class to serve their nefarious needs time and time again. Y'all should focus instead on how socialism is incompatible with authoritarianism. "Power to the people" my ass.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago (6 children)

No, it has not. Read Blackshirts and Reds, which I already linked. Communist movements served the Proletariat, not the Bourgeoisie. They also were by no means perfect "worker's paradises." Another good article is *Why Do Marxists Fail to Bring the "Worker's Paradise?" if you can only spare 20 minutes and not read a whole book.

Y'all should focus instead on how socialism is incompatible with authoritarianism

You should read On Authority, Marx and Engels were constantly hounded as "authoritarian" for advocating for central planning.

[–] shroomato@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thanks for linking the article. I like most of its points, but I don't agree with this materialistic outlook that the economic development is the be-all and end-all solution to implementing "true" socialism.
I believe that the root cause of all attempts of it failing so far is that humans are selfish assholes. Unless everyone bar none starts caring about their brethren and sistren at least as much as they care about themselves, the system can't work. It's simply too prone to being overtaken by bad faith actors who will inevitably abuse it for self serving purposes in the name of "socialism".

Marx and Engels were constantly hounded as “authoritarian” for advocating for central planning.

Well maybe these two guys were a product of their time and had some not-so-good ideas, so not every word of theirs should be taken as a gospel.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thanks for linking the article. I like most of its points, but I don't agree with this materialistic outlook that the economic development is the be-all and end-all solution to implementing "true" socialism.

There's no such thing as "true socialism," that's part of the point of the article.

I believe that the root cause of all attempts of it failing so far is that humans are selfish assholes. Unless everyone bar none starts caring about their brethren and sistren at least as much as they care about themselves, the system can't work. It's simply too prone to being overtaken by bad faith actors who will inevitably abuse it for self serving purposes in the name of "socialism".

Why do you think Socialism cares about thinfs like self-serving people?

Well maybe these two guys were a product of their time and had some not-so-good ideas, so not every word of theirs should be taken as a gospel.

Not as gospel, sure, but they have been proven correct.

[–] shroomato@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There’s no such thing as “true socialism,” that’s part of the point of the article.

Sure, but it provided a reason why the previous attempts of it failed, and in my opinion it's only a part of the equation.

Why do you think Socialism cares about thinfs like self-serving people?

Socialism can not care, as it's is not a conscious entity. Socialism can only "care" about whatever the people that are trying to implement it care about. And it failed every time in large part, IMO, because people didn't care about things like self-serving people.

Not as gospel, sure, but they have been proven correct.

Proven correct by whom? Soviet Union which fell apart? North Korea that haven't collapsed yet only because it's propped by China? China which had Mao starve tens of millions people to death and is currently successful only because it's full blown capitalist and "communist" in name only?

[+] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] shroomato@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

No, AES worked

If it worked we'd still have Soviet Union today.

USSR did work. PRC does work as well, and is Socialist, not Capitalist. Read Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism and Blackshirts and Reds Cuba works, Vietnam works, Laos works too.

We seem to have different definitions of what "working" means. What I've got from the article, which glosses over the inconvenient facts (like how much of China's success can be attributed to western capitalists moving all of their manufacturing to China), is that you can do whatever the fuck you want and still call it socialism. And your fans will believe you, because they don't care to look deeper beneath the label. The party line trumps all.

Mao didn’t “starve a bunch of people,” Mao ended famines in one of the poorest countries in the world

So what is the Great Chinese Famine then? Another inconvenient fact in the sea of inconvenient facts that you chose to close your eyes to? Do you think that lying to yourself and everyone else about historical facts like this one gives you a moral high ground over Nazi sympathizers who deny holocaust?

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Sorry, can't respond here fully, the moderators here censor comments with facts that don't fit their anti-Marxist narrarive. I never denied that the Great Chinese Famine existed either, I pointed out that famine was common in China pre-Mao and during Mao there was one final famine, because of improvements in agriculture that happened under Mao. Blaming Mao for the immense poverty and brutality of existing conditions pre-Mao that he couldn't possibly fix overnight is silly.

From the article I linked (and you haven't read evidently despite my insistence):

"This argument is just silly as Mao inherited one of the poorest countries in the world. Mao came to power in 1949. Between 1900–1948 the country was engulfed in poverty and famine. Let us simply take a look at few. Here I will simply go off the Wikipedia page List of famines in China and if the body count is within a range I will take the middle of the range.

1907 Great Qing Famine — 25 million dead
1920–1921 North China famine — 0.5 million dead
1928–1930 Chinese famine — 3 million dead
1936–1937 famine — 5 million dead
1942–1943 famine — 2.5 million dead

Total = 36 million dead from famine between 1900–1948

If we divide this number by the amount of years, fourty-nine, we find that about 735,000 people died of famine per year on average before Mao even came to power."

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