Even from people that never lived in a communist state

  • geissi@feddit.de
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    6 months ago

    You’re not going to break the Cuban blockade. You’re not going to settle the endless territorial disputes plaguing Vietnam. You’re not going to undo the legacy of generations of apartheid in South Africa overnight. You’re not going to Make the USSR Great Again.

    So maybe save yourself some angst and stop trying to tell Nicholas Maduro and Kim Jung Un how to do their jobs

    All these "you"s make me think that you might addressing me personally.
    I make no claim to solve anything, nor how anyone should do their job.
    I have provided an (incomplete) explanation as to what communism is, why it does not actually exist in practice and why therefore people commenting cannot be from a communist state.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      All these "you"s make me think that you might addressing me personally.

      Apologies, I intended to use the Royal You and was speaking primarily to the British Crown.

      I have provided an (incomplete) explanation as to what communism is, why it does not actually exist in practice and why therefore people commenting cannot be from a communist state.

      A country in which the government has transitioned from primitive feudal to industrial capital and is now under a revolutionary socialist government is still communist at least in so far as its following the roadmap Marx and his peers tried to lay out two centuries ago.

      If nothing else, these are communist governments in the sense that they take their governing philosophy from Marx, Lenin, and Mao (and Castro and Allende and Mandela and Ho Chi Mein and we can even throw in Fred Hampton and Rosa Luxemburg and Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim and the thousands of other notable revolutionaries if we’re being generous) in pursuit of the communist goal.

      To claim otherwise would be akin to claiming you’re not a capitalist because you haven’t successfully privatized your industry. Or to claim you aren’t feudalist because you’re not in the Royal Family.

      • geissi@feddit.de
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        6 months ago

        A country […] under a revolutionary socialist government is still communist

        I would argue that in a world where the terms are not synonymous, socialist countries are in fact socialist, not communist.

        at least in so far as its following the roadmap

        Following a roadmap to some target literally means that you have not yet achieved that target.
        The argument is not that their are no communists, the argument is that they have not established actual communism, therefore the states they govern are not communist states.
        Whether or not they want to establish communism does not factor into it.

        To claim otherwise would be akin to claiming that a company on a roadmap to profitability is already profitable, while actually still losing money.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          socialist countries are in fact socialist, not communist

          Countries that reform their private sectors in order to adopt socialist policies are pursuing communism.

          Countries that reform their socialist sectors in order to adopt privatization policies are not pursuing communism.

          Following a roadmap to some target literally means that you have not yet achieved that target.

          Right. You are implementing a policy that pursues a target.

          Whether or not they want to establish communism does not factor into it.

          “Mao wasn’t a communist in 1953 because his country hadn’t completed its first five year plan yet” is one hell of a claim.

          To claim otherwise would be akin to claiming that a company on a roadmap to profitability is already profitable

          It would be nutso to say Caryle Group isn’t interested in investing in profitable companies.

          And yet the entire strategy of growth investing is to identify companies with strong roadmaps and lend to them at higher return rates.

          So your analogy works, but not for the reason you’d expected.

          • geissi@feddit.de
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            6 months ago

            “Mao wasn’t a communist in 1953 because his country hadn’t completed its first five year plan yet” is one hell of a claim.

            One hell of a straw man, you mean.
            At what point have I denied that people are communists?
            Mao may be a communist and follow a philosophy called communism but China has not established a social order called communism as envisioned by communists.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              At what point have I denied that people are communists?

              socialist countries are in fact socialist, not communist

              Countries -> Large collections of People

              Not communist -> denying that these large collections of people are communist

              Mao may be a communist and follow a philosophy called communism but China has not established a social order called communism as envisioned by communists.

              Uh huh.