some people have to be forced into being a part of a social system.

IE, there are people who would rather let others die in the streets than have their taxes raised. some people are just terrible human beings who believe ‘i got mine, fuck everyone else’ which is antithetical to socialism, and requires a heavy hand via regulation.

I see a lot of comments saying they aren’t. I’d disagree, but I agree they don’t have to be. The issue is most of the major powers in the world have opposed leftist governments anytime they show up. The ones that didn’t have a strong central power and cultural hegymony collapsed under the pressure. Any nation that had a weaker central power was either destroyed, couped, or undermined by the west.

There is nothing intrinsically authoritarian about leftism (really, I’d say it’s less authoritarian in it’s ideals), but authoritarianism is easier to hold together when outside pressures are trying to destroy you.

Because they are. They are all very bad at social justice, probably because no matter the best intentions, humans are going to fuck it up. China isn’t even communist, it’s capitalist through and through. They have lousy worker protections, banks, housing markets, stock markets. The USSR was as expansionist and militaristic as any fascist regime, just like the current Russian one. Korea is essentially a tyrannical monarchy, no real communism to be found there. Why do you think the first ones to go up against the wall after a revolution are the true believers? Because they know it’s all gone wrong.

Politically they have ended up authoritarian in many instances. However, capitalism has as much “authoritarianism”, just economically. Try whatever -ism you like, enough percentage of population is psychopathic and will climb to a position of power in some form or another. It’s in our collective nature.

Because the communism is a convenient ideology for totalitarian states to exploit and control the population.

It’s exactly like the middle-ages Christianity, with the Bible promoting humanitarian ideology, and the church exploiting the hell out of the population.

That’s also why communists banned all religions, they don’t want any competition.

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from my own experience observing people migrating from the soviet union, they’re considered more authoritarian for the efforts to keep the workers in the worker’s paradise, the moment you have to put up walls and border checkpoints to keep people in, it’s over. you’re an authoritarian state, no longer actually socialist imho.

Im not sure what you mean by socialist countries. But communists countries are more oppresive:

• They have leaders that stay in power for decades. Opposition is often punished.
• There is nor freedom of speech, speaking against the government gets you in jail or worse.
• In some of those countries, people are not allowed to leave the country.

And for the record, I agree that poverty is extremely oppressive as well and we need more socialist reforms in capitalist countries, tax harder the rich, break monopolies, foster more unions and so on, I just dont agree that communism is the magical land you all think it is and the solution to all the problems. Nobody seems to want immigrate to North Korea for a reason.

They aren’t?

Americans live in an authoritarian plutocracy, but refuse to believe it

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B

Because authority carried out under the pretenses of private property is whitewashed in liberal states, who are the ones in your question doing the “considering”.

Marketing

Their governments have more or full control

For communist countries, because they are.

Because mass media, manufactured consent, and regulatory capture are the “good” kind of coercion.