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Everyone I’ve ever met who lived under it says it’s was fucking awful. Not a single endorsement. That’s significant because even capitalism has boosters. Not communism.
I know several working class folks who grew up in the USSR who, while they admit it wasn't perfect, were very happy with how things were then and - although some of them are now onboard the Pravda train to looneyville & love Putin and believe the Russian Orthodox church line that Ukraine is led by baby-eating, devil-worshipping, Nazi Pedophiles (not an exaggeration) - they admit things are much worse than they were then and place the blame squarely on moving away from communism & planned economy.
Because of strong social programs, they had access to good education, work & a high quality of life, and a level of recreation and leisure that seems wild to me as an American.
Communism is not a monolith. There are many tendencies. And YMMV depending on the folks in power, just like any system. Additionally, despots love to call themselves socialist/communist while doing nothing relating to seizing the means of production - look at Cambodia (Khmer Rouge) as an example.
Imagine if we asked folks "What's your experience been like living in a capitalist regime". Most people would think thats a weird question because of how many types of capitalist regimes exist - it'sa general economic framework, not a system of government. Your experience will vary wildly if you are from like rural Kenya vs the US vs Scandinavia.
Great point(s).
I've met quite a few people who say that although there were disadvantages, on average it was ok to live in Soviet Union after the 60s. If you asked around in Russia, there would even be those who praised it. Because there were some advantages like not bad free education and free medicine, for example. In some good times, you could even get a free apartment or a piece of land. And now, under capitalism, it is very difficult to earn an apartment in the most developed cities.
Historical context matters too.
60s Soviet russia was not the best in the world when it came to economic or human development, and certainly was not politically or culturally free in the slightest. It paled in comparison to the US or Europe- BUT if you had previously experienced the civil war, collapse of the empire, multiple widespread famines and total social upheaval, the pains of Stalin's industrialization and then WWII... dear god, the relative stability of the 1960's planned economy probably felt like heaven in comparison.
I object to the term "capitalism". The correct term is "classical liberal" (modern liberals are something else with very little in common). I boost capitalism because it is a result of freedom, and that also informs when I will limit my support for capitalism.
Capitalism isn't a result of freedom at all, it's actually the opposite. There are many examples I could give, but a simple one is land. There was a time where nobody could own land, it was considered a shared, public resource, that anyone could make use of. Under capitalism, land is made private, and restricted people from roaming there. The freedom of one person to own land is inherently taking away the freedom of others to roam or use that land.
Capitalism incentivizes hoarding as much wealth and power into as few hands as possible, encourages our most selfish, anti-cooperative impulses, hampers innovation, and inevitably leads to fascism.
And communism is worse. China boasts a greater population percentage of poor than America does. And has the same 1% controlling the most wealth.
I'm an anarchist. I advocate for anarchism. I'm not a fan of China at all. But Capitalism is way worse than anything China is doing. Capitalism is why we have kids working in sweat shops, conflict minerals being mined in war-torn countries, colonialism, slavery, and fascism. World War 2 was directly caused by capitalism.
https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/index.html
As a rule, I generally don’t take seriously, anything that follows:
…unless it’s followed by the rest of the lyrics.
In his book, Anger is an Energy, Johnny Rotten says:
Neat.
Enjoy!
I'm not a fan of the Sex Pistols, I'm way too young really, I assumed you were!
The music was great! The politics were gimmicky. So not much has really changed.
So are you like, rich or something?
The foundation of classical liberalism is "life liberty and property". The ability to own land is a large part of that.
There is no capitalist society, but many of them are versions of classical liberal - while the two have much in common there is a major difference at the core.
Every classical liberal society is also inherently capitalist. If your society is based around private ownership of the means of production and generating profit, you've got a capitalist society. Capitalism is the bedrock underlying liberalism. You're basically saying "we do not drive motor vehicles, we drive cars"
You have the relation backward. Liberalism underlies capitalism.
Capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with liberal values. If the rights of the individual and equality are important to you, then you should oppose capitalism, because it is responsible for creating the greatest inequality humanity has ever seen, and for creating the most oppressive regimes the world has ever seen. Fascism is capitalism taken to it's logical conclusion.
I think you're probably right about this, as evidenced by...well, everything. But can you flesh this thought out, if it's something you've thought about in detail? It's just interesting to me to read more on that connection.
Thanks for the question, I'd be happy to expand a little bit - the basics of it go something like this: the more money you have, the easier it is to accumulate more money. Money can be used to purchase goods and services, including all sorts of propaganda. Over time, wealth will concentrate in fewer and fewer hands. This leads to progressively worse and worse inequality. This inequality is most harshly felt by the most vulnerable to begin with, but eventually it begins to impact more and more of the working class. As the working class begins to push back against the growing inequality, those in power are incentivized to shift the blame onto others, because they don't want to give up their wealth and power. The wealthy will use their institutional power, their control over media apparatus, etc. to push a narrative that the problems felt by the working classes are caused by [whoever]. They also push all sorts of propaganda to divide the working class into smaller and smaller sub-groups - if you've seen stories in the news about how Millenials/Boomers/GenZ are ruining X/Y/Z, that's an easy example of the ruling class sowing division among the working class. Eventually, as the inequality grows worse and worse, the poor suckers who bought into the ruling class's propaganda begin to demand more and more extreme solutions to their problems - which obviously aren't improving, because [whoever] isn't actually responsible for their problems, it's the ruling class.
Laws can't solve this problem, because lawmakers can be bought. Elections can't solve this problem either, because the problems are so deeply entrenched that even if we managed to elect leaders that truly do represent us, the ruling class have so much institutional power in other instruments of the state - the military, the police, the judiciary, the media, the education system, the civil service, the intelligence services (CIA, FBI, NSA, et al.) and so on - are controlled, directly or indirectly, by the ruling class. This is why we need a social revolution, we need to throw off the ruling class and never re-establish it. If there are rulers, then there will always be oppression.
I'd recommend taking a look at an anarchist FAQ for more information about the problems in society and how anarchism can solve them.
Again, I'm a clasical liberal. capitalism is a strawman so you can make arguements like the above. In some ways what I support looks like capitalism but only because and where it is a concequense of clasical liberalism.
note that I need to specify clasical liberal above. Modern liberals are different form us in many complev ways
The inevitable outcome of classical liberalism is fascism. A free market means the accumulation of wealth into fewer and fewer hands becomes inevitable. Then liberalism dies and is replaced by corporatiam. Classical liberalism is propaganda for capitalism. They made you a slave and called it freedom. And you love it.
Liberalism is a type of capitalism. It’s hard for me to understand why people can’t grasp this concept. It’s not a difficult one.
You have it backwards. liberalism came first and underlies capitalism.
the difierence is important because we e do capitalism because of liberalism - freedon - and not a devotion to capital.
You appear to be using the term "capitalism" in a confusing way. From etymonline:
Words can change meaning and all that, but when people complain about capitalism, they don't mean what you're talking about. You seem to mean something like "well-regulated free market", and other people mean "broken, exploitative system that worships greed"
That is why I object to capitalism - it is defined to be whatever socialists want to demean without reguard if that is even what is happening, if it is acceptable because of other benefits. It assumes capitalists are fine with corruption.
When in reality we are liberals who understand rule of law.