TarzanTheJungler
Proton
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2017
- Messages
- 249
- Nebulae
- 163
To preface, watch this
I would like to make something clear first:In this discussion I take the role of a concerned citizen and not an all knowing representative. Truth be told, I haven't read the entirety of Marxes "Communism manifesto". Thus I will refrain from going into details of the inner mechanisms behind governmental control types, instead basing my opinion heavily on historical evidence and using simplifications of policies as base of proof for my examples. Afterwards, I will address your own views on capitalism. Now straight to the chase:
Intentions & Actions Vs Reality
Intentions & Actions part:
Communism states that every person must contribute to the government to the best of their ability. Each person then receives equal food tokens to spend. Due to government controlling the means of production, 5 year plans or similar are put in place. None-essential necessities could be bought(Either by money or other means necessary). This lead to the "из никого в одночасье стать всем." ("From nobody to everybody!")motto.
This all brought in the past(And this is part of reality, in Lenin times to be exact) such commodities as theatres, health-care, public transport and so on down to a price of 0$, nil, zero - free. Working slots appeared everywhere, as each province had been appropriated by the state to serve a specific function. Factories and farms went into cosmic-production rates. Overall, sounds like your dreamland if you were a peasant under the regime of the Tzar. That's why it got so popular.
Reality:
Stagnation, corruption, censorship, authoritarianism and more.
You're awfully quick to jump on the Capitalism-Hate-Bandwagon when you completely overlooked the fact that your system is also prone to the some of same diseases as capitalism itself is. But before the similarities, let's talk about the exclusive tumors that communism faced:
Stagnation.
Due to means of productions being seized by the government, there was no market competition. Apart from bringing you "different kind of soaps" it also brought innovation and the push to progress. In soviet union, the research rates of anything none-governmental were practically none-existent. This meant, that while the cavemen in USSR were stuck with outdated cars, home appliances and so on, the capitalistic west progressed like never before as supply and demand paved the way to new discoveries weekly.
What is more, due to the 5-year plan, the supply of everything had to be extremely precise. This meant that if you wanted to buy your kid a branch of bannanas - you're fucked, cause the plan says your kid can only have no more than 3. Resupply was a drag too, as people waited hours upon HOURS in lines to get just a regular pack of sausages(Photo of a weekly bread-line).
Here I'd like to take a second to point out, that letting a government decide what is best for you, without your input, is fucking retarded. Basing on previous stats and trying to calculate for the future is absolutely idiotic cause it never calculates for unexpected turns(Such as sudden growth in population, who would be left starving).
- Brezhnev
To summarize: Technologies lacked, starvation and poverty ruled, 5 year plan was a stupid idea.
Moving on:
Corruption:
Corruption is not exclusive to any sort of ruling, just the type of bribes were different. While in the capitalistic world it's money, in the communistic one it's rare foods and appliances(A sloppy source:My Grand grandmother was a director of a school and she regularly brought home fruits that were otherwise unavailable on the market as parents of failing students always begged her to not expel their child). As living places were also provided by the government, if you wanted to get something fancier than what you were written out(Based on how many people are in your family) then you had to find just the right man(While in the west, all you had to do was save enough money and buy without having to bribe anyone).
People will stay people. When they feel power, they often fall to greed. That's what happened to Soviet officials and happens to this day in places like China(Example would be the fact that drugs there are illegal for locals, however when foreigners buy them, officials tend to look the other way as it promotes export which in return brings proffits into their pockets.
Censorship:
Yeah, try speaking out against a party which completely controls your daily routine, your supply and more. Good luck.
Authoritarianism
Lastly, to actually maintain communism, you need authoritarianism(For the 5 year plans and so on). And I don't think I need to explain why Authoritarianism is cancer.
But I don't think capitalism is our God and saviour.
As I mentioned greed, corruption and control is not exclusive to any one ruling. But that's the thing man, power is always power, it's just in different forms.
Reactions:
List
