this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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Memes

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[–] lookupgeorgism@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago (7 children)

I’m getting a bit tired of seeing the communism/capitalism dichotomy. Guys let’s be pluralistic or at least see these two as a scale. There are a lot of solutions in between. Government failures exist just as much as market failures. Let’s focus on the actual root causes of our problems: externalities, rent seeking, private land ownership, too long patents, public good provision, overly complex legal system, information asymmetries in labor markets. We need unions, free health care, cheaper education, carbon taxes, land value taxes, simplified legal system that can’t be taken advantage of. Stop this capitalism vs communism bullshit. That’s not the cause of all this. Your real enemy is “rentier capitalism”.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (9 children)

I think you're quite dramatically misinterpreting what the solutions put forward by Communists are, or at least Marxists. Marxists are not believers that there is some perfect form of society we can implement today that will also be perfect 100 years from now. Rather, the Marxist assertion is that different forms are best suited in different conditions and different levels of development.

China is a good example. The PRC is headed by a Communist party over a Socialist economy, one that has public ownership as the principle aspect, but nonetheless heavily relies on markets. This is because the CPC believes this to be the best form of society right now, and that as markets coalesce into fewer firms, they can be more efficiently publicly owned and planned. The long term belief is that eventually abolishing the value form will be possible and necessary, but we aren't there yet.

I think that because you haven't engaged with what Communists are actually trying to do, you've ended up inventing a strawman to argue against, even though you'd likely agree with us. Marxism is a scientific approach to economic development. There isn't an "in-between" of Communism vs Capitalism, because we are either taking control over Capital, or it has control over us.

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[–] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 59 points 2 days ago (4 children)

aren't those "killed by communists" lists tend to include the Nazis killed in ww2? kind of dishonest.

[–] Count042@lemmy.ml 30 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

That is one of the more honest examples of what they do.

You want dishonest?

They count the difference between expected birthrate and actual birthrate.

War causes people to have less babies? Each baby not born = 1 death caused by communism.

Worse then dead, they never were.

[–] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 23 points 1 day ago

it's interesting how anyone who dies in a communist country (even not being born there counts) is considered "death by communism", but then ignore the same from non communist counties.

kind of dishonest on their part...

[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Better sex education, access to contraception/abortion, and generally women having more control over when they have children/how many children they want to have under socialism was claimed to have taken "victims" too. Because if you're not accidentally getting pregnant at 19 with no recourse other than giving birth to children you didn't want, that's oppression by a totalitarian dictator.

[–] all4theTomatoes@lemm.ee 37 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The author of the black book of communism tended to write include even people who stubbed their toe as “victims of communism” yea.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 day ago

That author was so dubious that even two other co-authors of the book later denounced it.

[–] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 16 points 1 day ago

kicks nightstand "curse you Marx"

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[–] Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world 47 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Honest question: where does the 1,6 billion figure come from?

[–] ExotiqueMatter@lemmy.ml 58 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Every death by Dutch capitalism (death from the slave trade, Colonialism/Colonial wars (Oceania, Africa, ...), ...)

plus

Every death by British empire's capitalism (Irish genocide, Bengal famine, Slave trade, Colonialism/Colonial wars (India, Africa, North America, South east Asia, Oceania, Middle east, ...) , Opium wars, Massacres against independence movements (India, ...), ...)

plus

Every death by French capitalism (Colonialism/colonial wars (North America, Caribbeans, Africa, South east Asia, ...), Slave trade, Massacres against independence movements (Algeria, Haiti, ...), ...)

plus

Every death by Belgian capitalism (Colonialism/Colonial wars (Congo, ...), Slave trade, Massacres against independence movements, ...)

plus

Every death by United States' capitalism (Colonialism/Colonial wars (Cuba, Hawaii, Philipines, North America, ...), Massacres against independence movements (South east Asia, Oceania, Cuba, ...), Slave trade, ...)

plus

Every death by German capitalism (Nama and Herero genocide, Holocaust, Slave trade, ...)

plus

Every death caused by preventable starvation, lack of access to water, healthcare.

List very much non-exhaustive.

If you add it all up you easily get over 1 Billion.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 26 points 2 days ago

As expected this made libs here seething. Spectre haunts again lmao.

[–] felykiosa@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

The Chinese communism revolution killed a shit lot of peoples. I hate capitalism but you have to be objective .also there were less comunism countries to begin with so yeah you can do what you want with statistics but its worth nothing more than a cry/Chad wojack

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Meanwhile in the real world

Between 1950 and 1980, China experienced the most rapid sustained increase in life expectancy of any population in documented global history. We know of no study that has quantitatively assessed the relative importance of the various explanations proposed for this gain in survival. We have created and analysed a new, province-level panel data set spanning the decades between 1950 and 1980 by combining historical information from China's public health archives, official provincial yearbooks, and infant and child mortality records contained in the 1988 National Survey of Fertility and Contraception. Although exploratory, our results suggest that gains in school enrolment and public health campaigns together are associated with 55-70 per cent of China's dramatic reductions in infant and under-5 mortality during our study period. These results underscore the importance of non-medical determinants of population health, and suggest that, in some circumstances, general education of the population may amplify the effectiveness of public health interventions.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25495509/

Should do an AMA on what it's like to put those clown shoes on every morning.

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

You're literally blaming communists for the deaths of a civil war with multiple factions and you're compaining about being objective lmao. Are you even aware of the conditions that led to the civil war in China? These events do not happen in a vacuum you know?

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If we are to be 100% objective, the Chinese Revolution also saved millions. Life expectancy doubled, and hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty. We also know that the Black Book of Communism has long been debunked, it included made up numbers, Nazis killed during World War II as victims of Communism, and non-births as deaths.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We also know that the Black Book of Communism has long been debunked

According to Wikipedia, even a few of its own co-authors have denounced it, saying the main author was obsessed with inflating the numbers.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 day ago

Yep, it's a notoriously bad book.

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