cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/26817410
this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2025
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At the risk of getting downvoted to oblivion, honest discussion. Obviously capitalism isn’t working in America. But in Russia, starting under Lenin, tons of people still suffered and died, and still do to this day, no? So is Lenin’s ideology really better than the US economic system, when either he failed to implement it, or he did and it still resulted in serious issues?
Starting under Lenin? You have an extremely fucking rosey view of the Russian Empire under the Tsar.
By and large, Socialism was an incredible improvement compared to the Tsarist system, though not some fairytale perfect wonderland, and Socialism was far better than current Capitalism is in the Russian Federation. 7 million excess deaths occured from the transition from Socialism to Capitalism, as the previous safety nets were dissolved or sold off at bargain prices to foreign Capitalists.
The Bolshevik revolution was positive, suffering was dramatically reduced with its implementation, not increased. With Socialism came a dramatic and sustained improvement in worker's rights, equality of the sexes, a doubling of life expectancies, an end to famine, incredible scientific achievement in a country that began the century as an underdeveloped agrarian backwater, and a democratization of society in a way that far supercedes the former Tsarist system and the future Capitalist system in the Russian Federation.
I don't know what you mean by "to this day," to this day Russia is now Capitalist, it hasn't been Socialist since the beginning of the 90's. If you want a nuanced critique of the USSR, Blackshirts and Reds is a good option, it's the second item in my reading list if you want a link.
Moreover, Russia transitioned to Socialism when Russia was a feudal backwater and the US was transitioning to the world superpower, it was always far behind in world power and yet did a better job of maximizing resource usage in favor of the Workers, despite the US's Imperialism.
Does being a mafia state and an oligarchy under an authoritarian still qualify as capitalist? Not trying to dismiss the argument on those grounds, but when the economic system is almost entirely captured by a few powerful individuals in a kleptocracy is that even capitalism anymore? The US is just now getting slapped in the face with our economic system almost completely captured by oligarchs that are inserting themselves into political control.
The US is at a much higher and more developed form of Capitalism, also called "late-stage" Capitalism. This is a part of Capitalist development.
Doesn’t answer the question I asked.
I think it does. Capitalism at a higher stage is still Capitalism, even if some of the characteristics change.
This is what I asked. Your answer has absolutely nothing to do with whether Russia is still capitalist despite being a fully captured authoritarian/oligarchy/kleptocracy.
Russia is a Capitalist country, quite similar to the US in that regard. The fact that few people own the most doesn't mean it isn't a Capitalist economy driven by private ownership.
I think the previous commenter was also implying that since the Soviet system collapsed it was also not going to work.
Also what about the scarcity of resources that still plagued the Soviet Union when it collapsed (and seems to have been a big factor)? There were an awful lot of bread lines and defectors for an optimal system.
I have no delusions that capitalism is the solution either, especially as automation takes the power of labor away (what little is left anyway after the political weakening it's gone through since the 80s). I firmly believe some form of socially conscious democracy is absolutely going to be necessary for humanity thrive and survive it's own past actions (poverty, wealth inequality, environmental neglect, etc.). But that means surviving late-stage capitalism and not falling into a massive war that ends in a subdivision of ideologies like the last 2 world wars.
The Soviet system lasted nearly a full century, and worked very well for the vast majority of its existence. If someone wants to make the claim that collapse is inevitable just because the USSR was dissolved, they need to do the legwork to prove it as such. We can discuss what went right and what went wrong in the USSR, including how and why it dissolved, but without legwork assertions like "collapse was inevitable" can be ignored and not taken seriously as there's nothing to take seriously.
As for scarcity of resources, that's something that can actually be addressed, but I want to clear up the rest of that paragraph first. For 1, I never said the USSR was "optimal," and no Marxist believes it to have been a perfect wonderland, just a much better system with its own flaws, albeit lesser flaws. For 2, social services aren't a bad thing, especially not in a system that saw by far the most devastation from World War II. The fact is, addressing hunger was a priority for the Socialist system as full employment was one of the benefits and necessities for that form of economy, unlike Capitalism, so even if we assume everyone acted selfishly there was no need for a "reserve army of labor."
Now to actually address scarcity of resources. The fundamental issue with the Soviet system and resource gathering was that it could not depend on international trade for anything. The Capitalist countries all made deliberate choices to provide unstable or unfavorable trade with the Socialists, so they had to develop all of their resources internally, even ones scarce in the regions controlled by the Socialists. Even then, GDP growth was some of the highest in the world while wealth disparity some of the lowest. Further, much of the economy was spent on millitary research and development in order to keep the US at bay.
As for your final paragraph, I don't think we actually disagree here, though I imagine your "socially conscious democracy" is different from what you think the Marxist-Leninist states look like. Surviving Imperialism as the highest form of Capitalism requires, above all, an end to the US Empire as the world's greatest Imperialist power, and an uplifiting of the Global South. We can't move beyond Capitalism globally while the US Empire still functions the way it does, by "dollar recycling" off of all the other countries and owning 800 millitary bases globally to keep the Dollar standard going.
The problem wasn't with communism. It is a great ideal that we can keep in a back pocket comes time to build something new.
I still feel the crux of our problem is human behaviour. I know democracy isn't really working out for us, but it seems to be the hardest system to hack. Of course it's not impossible as seen in the US (and Hungary, for an interesting example), but it's definitely harder to buy up and/or convince a majority.
We definitely have to find something better, but my main problem with (my imagined) communistic ideal is that almost every actor needs to be good faith in it, otherwise it dystopes.
Socialism (and Communism, ie the future post-Socialist global mode of production) are both democratic. Are you using "Democracy" as a stand-in term for Capitalism? What do you believe "Democracy" means? Moreover, why do you think Socialism is "easier to hack?"
Secondly, I genuinely don't know what you mean by Communism requiring everyone to "act in good faith." There's laws and government in Communism, as well as democratic control and civil protections.
I think, more than anything, it would benefit you greatly to take a look at what Communists believe. Up in the parent comment I have a list of reading you can check out, if you'd like. I think you'll find it difficult to understand and talk about Communism if you don't first take a look at what Communists believe in the first place.
What if someone doesn't adhere to 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'? We can go and imagine a real utopia, but there are very real ways it can go wrong and the system will have trouble handling it.
The main thing I am arguing though, is that communism doesn't really account for imperfect behaviour. At the moment, no one system does.
What do you think a system that has managed to achieve "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" would look like? Are you just imagining a Utopia and thinking it wouldn't work? Marxists agree, imagining a Utopia and trying to build it is a failure in analysis of reality, hence why Marxism rejected Utopian model building. Read Socialism: Utopian and Scientific if you want to see what Marxists actually believe.
The main thing you are arguing is that your preconceived notion of Communism that you appear to have extrapolated from a single phrase doesn't account for imperfect behavior, but you aren't arguing against what Communists actually want, just what you think they want.
One word away from "human nature". I hope you understand that our behaviour changes with our environment, e.g. our economic system. The behaviour seen right now is under a system that encourages e.g. competition, and one where if a capitalist (the owner of a company) does something that is nice, but lowers profit, a more ruthless one will likely take their place.
I encourage you to read theory, see Cowbees list for recommendations.
The system definitely encourages and rewards explotation, but why do people do it at all? Will this behaviour stop if we penalize it? Or just gently teach the children after the bloody revolution?
How do we get past the notion of power corrupting people? All I'm arguing is that communism is not an outright solution for society.
I promise to read up on dialectic materialism, but the end of link you sent mentions getting a gun. That's just bad advice.
Ask yourself how much you actually know about Russia, and how much qas taught to you by people who wanted to maintain capitalist superiority. Then do some research outside of a lemmy thread.
a lot of macroeconomists want to divorce capitalism and governmental corruption, but that's because they're capitalists.
Nothing will work until people get a few basic things straight. Two simple thoughts humanity still avoids:
Until each and everyone understands that and starts acting accordingly, no amount of -isms or whatnot is going to make anything better. Now, some can argue like "but today's world is much better than slavery", to which there is a simple answer:
So... yeah, Lenin and the gang did exactly zero things better, tons of people continued to suffer and die and there was no end to it long after Lenin died
Those two rules are purely individualistic, though. What about problems that we all need to coordinate on in order to make our lives well, like climate change?
You picked quite an easy example :)