Anonymous shield_of_democracy 16w

Having studied the rise and fall of communist countries and societies, one key similarity every instance has experienced is rapid, unfettered corruption rotting the fundamental institutions of society as people constantly fight each other for a dwindling resource pool. No one makes money so people are less incentivized to work

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Anonymous shield_of_democracy 16w

If they can’t afford basic necessities that are already not in reliable supply, people disengage from the social contract, similar to capitalism. Except with communism the commodities just don’t exist on store shelves in sufficient quantities

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Anonymous shield_of_democracy 16w

If the resources become scarce, it incentivizes competition, which evolves into defaulting to a survivalist mentality, and anyone and everyone forgoes personal relationships to compete for resources. Citizens develop a “Us vs. Them” mentality and it’s terrifying

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Anonymous shield_of_democracy 16w

They all allowed themselves to become authoritarian because of the insane power vacuums. No society with stability has ever tried it.

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Anonymous shield_of_democracy 16w

Not that I’m advocating for it, but the OOP has a point that it hasn’t “properly” been done before

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Anonymous #2 16w

Again, harkening back to the survivalist mentalities. Unless you have a strong overarching governing body that exerts an intense grip on the rest of government that itself is immune to greed and corruption, the system falls apart

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Anonymous shield_of_democracy 16w

To be fair they weren’t communist though they were prob some weird socialist centralized economy. I agree with you I just think that the distinction is important. If socialism doesn’t work then communism for sure won’t bc socialism is supposed to be economic model before communism.

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Anonymous blue__wave 16w

Remember when food was moneys

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Anonymous #1 16w

You have people hoarding food and not distributing it evenly, further driving home the competitive and survivalist mentality.

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Anonymous shield_of_democracy 16w

I think there’s some alienation going on these days too!

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Anonymous #1 16w

The people who no have boards of food gotta feel a lil left out

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Anonymous #1 16w

Wdym?

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Anonymous blue__wave 16w

Trying to wrap my head around this too

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Anonymous shield_of_democracy 16w

🧐

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Anonymous #1 16w

You remind me of a Polish friend of mine who had undiagnosed schizophrenia

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Anonymous #4 16w

Basically the argument keeps moving goal posts. I hate capitalism, but I hate communism more because of how susceptible it is to unfettered corruption that has wider implications than just hoarding money.

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Anonymous shield_of_democracy 16w

Well you see, there are haves and have nots, and hopefully society can have a sort of social class fluidity that allows people to move up, but if people are hoarding “food” or “money” or “resources” to further value what they have accumulated, then people don’t go anywhere

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Anonymous #1 16w

Alienation

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Anonymous #1 16w

Exactly, communism relies on keeping people suppressed to maintain a ratio of workers to bosses, capitalism allows more leniency when it comes to class fluidity, if only by a micro-margin.

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Anonymous #1 16w

But I’m not really arguing anything. It’s happening everywhere no matter what purported system is in place and has been since the agricultural revolution. If we want to make interesting claims about the future, have we empirically improved by every measure going back say 4000 years

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Anonymous #1 16w

If we are improving technologically and morally on a track, then what’s the next step? It’s idealistic truly, and that’s its biggest weakness, what it is

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Anonymous shield_of_democracy 16w

Idk if it’s fair to say the premise is bad as a whole, it is the natural progression for society If you were to imagine the history of society as a pyramid, the base (most primitive, “stable”) is hunter-gatherer, local chiefdoms (once permanent centers for goods are established), monarchy/empire (once control of trade is possible), feudalism (arguably a step back), capitalism (where we are now), socialism (where the world is slowly going to next), communism

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Anonymous #1 16w

And if this dialectical materialism truly is a philosophy of the movement of all historical change, “what’s after communism?” you hear me cry in the distance

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Anonymous shield_of_democracy 16w

Trying to jump up any of the steps too early makes it far easier for corruption and power to amass. For example - in the Roman era, trying to jump to capitalism would’ve been foolish because the Persians would’ve just steamrolled through them in a matter of decades. Similarly, jumping straight to communism when there wasn’t effective means for the masses to access resources and information fairly allowed for power to be amassed by those who controlled those things

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Anonymous #1 16w

I have such a pungent thought, I truly believe that if there is a heaven, those human being up there have to be complaining. There’s NOTHIN TO DO 😩

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Anonymous #1 16w

We haven’t gotten far enough to know, I doubt pastoralist nomads 4,000 years ago couldn’t have imagined what capitalism is

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Anonymous #2 16w

Could have* not couldn’t

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Anonymous #1 16w

Ong tho 😭 like the whole thing is “you get to praise god forever” And I’m like “yeah idk I don’t think 24/7 worship of someone for ETERNITY sounds like the ideal way of life”

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Anonymous #2 16w

What’s the evidence that it’s going to be socialism I think everyone agrees that economic models change, but socialism hasn’t been shown to be the next step. The most developed countries like France, UK, US and Germany were supposed to be the first leaving capitalism, instead we got weird post colonial authoritarians.

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Anonymous #2 16w

I don’t think it’s knowable! The contentedness of human beings is a result of successful survival and we make do where we are and when we are, what happens happens, give up or live. From a barren desert to the arctic circle there are human beings with lives that make sense and they aren’t lesser. From a jungle to tightly built skyscrapers

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Anonymous blue__wave 16w

I’m just basing it on the success of Northern Europe tbh, I think over time more and more countries are going to follow in their steps

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Anonymous #1 16w

Human ingenuity and a longing for purpose 🥺 it makes me tear up. A stone axe does the same job a steel one does

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Anonymous #2 16w

But Northern Europe is still capitalist they just heavily redistribute wealth with taxes, which I agree is a better system but that’s not socialism.

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Anonymous blue__wave 16w

Yes, you’re right. However, kinda going along what I was saying is that moving too quickly into true socialism or communism isn’t really like that. Capitalism wasn’t made in a day, or even a year. It takes gradual policy changes on the scales of lifetimes for societies to transition well. It can be expedited under certain circumstances, but that’s usually bringing plagues up to current standards, not progressing those standards

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Anonymous blue__wave 16w

All that is to say - I really just have my fingers crossed that they’ll continue to work into true socialism. There really won’t be a black and white “end of capitalism” date or anything yk?

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Anonymous #2 16w

YO THE WHOLE WORLD IS ONE BIG LONG CIV GAME

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Anonymous #1 16w

You’ve cracked the code of the entire basis of my world view lmao (legit, I think everything from religion to the Big Bang could be explained by a civ-like simulation)

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Anonymous #1 16w

And I’m the Geist killing everybody! For THEIR STUFF

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Anonymous #2 16w

Sure and I’m fine with that, I’m critical of socialist but I’m fine if they want to democratically try socialism. I just think it’s cringe when we have to violently take over power to try this economic system that hasn’t really been proven yet. It just seems like it’ll result in the authoritarianism we’ve already seen. If people want to vote themselves into socialism then I say let them try it, as long as they can vote themselves out of socialism I’m fine with it.

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Anonymous #2 16w

But to me you’re begging the question of why you believe socialism is the next step, so far you pointed to states that are capitalist to indicate that socialism is the next step.

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Anonymous blue__wave 16w

Yeah that’s the key - ensuring that this happens with thoughtful intent, public awareness and acceptance. There will be ups and downs in the “chart” of society, but assuming opportunities for power centralization are slowly closed off, I think we’ll have a mostly socialist planet by 2150 and communist by 2500. (I have no evidence for this speculation whatsoever to be completely candid lol)

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Anonymous blue__wave 16w

I look at Marx more in the philosophy world than the political science world, and I’m not sayin I’m right for doing that. But he’s really Hegel influenced and quite literally Big C Communism is the end of all history, there will be nothing to report about anymore. And in Hegel when human beings learn all that their is to know, we become omnipotent and all knowing… like God! Reconciling God and Man THROUGH REASON! And Marx just made it about labor like a nerd

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Anonymous #2 16w

Ok that’s fine and I think you have a reasonable take or one that I think wouldn’t end horribly for society.

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Anonymous blue__wave 16w

Because they’re implementing much more socialist leaning policies - slowly reducing the amount of economic power individuals and companies can yield, while simultaneously offering both more in depth and broad reaching social programs like healthcare and their social security which seemingly is much more stable than ours atm

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Anonymous blue__wave 16w

Ayo that’s like the best compliment I could expect on here 🥹

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Anonymous #2 16w

I’ve been following this thread in the background and I love the polite discussion that has grown

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Anonymous #2 16w

To me I don’t see that as sign of up coming socialism, i see that as the flexibility in our liberal capitalism system. For example if you and I wanted to start a shoe factory and we wanted to be the only workers/owners we could do that under our current system. We would be workers who own their own capital and that would be possible. If I lived in a socialist society and I wanted to start my own business with workers that would be impossible. I think there’s more flexibility under our current

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Anonymous #2 16w

System.

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Anonymous #1 16w

I think Hegel can be applied in really cringe ways like I think most socialist would say that it’s a contradiction that labor wants to be paid the most and do the least, while capital wants to pay them the least and have them do the most. To me that competition isn’t a contradiction but, a good system of establishing what labor is worth. I honestly don’t know that much about that’s just my understanding.

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