Of course you have to be subtle about it, but it works because it deconstructs the biases of media and education during the process. If someone brings up mass killings under Stalin, the worst thing you can do is spill your spaghetti talking about the -isms of Marxism or dropping some utterly unconvincing analysis of the Soviet system as "state capitalism". The best thing you can do is bring up the starvations and killings under the thousands of systems that allowed for private property, ask why don't these count as "mass killings under capitalism", and illustrate with examples of deaths under British colonialism or under current US-sponsored regimes.
There's nothing worst than watching a Leftist polite-debate capitalism and socialism. You always end up in the defensive because you'll be held accountable to some tree falling over a dude's head in Cuba while most people happily dissociate their support for capitalism from most of the misery and suffering that happen under it. Hold them to the standards they preach instead of politely explaining theoretical differences within Marxism that they're deliberately and cynically ignorant about.
The issue is that because the Communist parties took responsibility for feeding everyone in the xxth century "socialist" states people blame Communism for every death caused by starvation. In capitalist world people view starvation as something caused by "the market," because they are cucked by ideology they view market outcomes as a mystical forces outside of human control.
Commodity and market fetishism means Capitalists will never be held responsible for the deaths from privation the capitalist system creates. Still I agree "what-aboutism" is a better strategy then using that whole state-capitalism argument which always seems disingenuous.
The other option would be to simply re-brand our ideas so we don't have to defend the M-L states.
Brandon Wright
Of course it depends who you're arguing with.
But I've done this before and it works. When people mention gulags, talk about chain gangs in America and ask how they're different.
Grayson Lopez
people always say shit like this and never explain why. It seems like a not-so-subtle sort of ML shilling, honestly. If you have done enough research to defend a position that the USSR was state capitalist and you genuinely believe that, you should defend that position. Yes "no true socialism" is a bit of a meme, but it looks less bad than stalin apology to most people and if you understand your position well enough you should be able to deal with those accusations pretty easily.
Yes the liberals have a very high death count that they don't like to acknowledge and if they try and skewer you on "muh death counts" it might help to bring that up. But otherwise don't defend the USSR if you were never pro-USSR to begin with. that's just reddit tier and no one will take you seriously
Jaxon Torres
come on, I'll just quote a post from a few days ago:
Its not that its unconvincing, its that to the average normie it comes off as extremely disingenuous. I always just say the USSR's problem was that it was ruled by a small clique, which led to corruption and stagnation.
I'm all for making analysis of the USSR as state capitalist among other leftists, but you are delusional if you think it will sway average people.
Jackson James
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Jonathan Ortiz
I remember that the standard narrative against socialism used to be "oh, it's all the same! It used to be the businesses exploiting the workers, but now, under socialism it's just the state". And in fact most critiques can be reduced back to this, the other prominent one being " it's because there were no free markets". One can build up upon this complaint, and turn it against the opponent, when one makes clear that it makes no sense to explain the USSR with terminology used by standard liberal capitalist ideologues.
I find it much better than just trying to ignore what the others are saying by changing the topic to something else. At best you can convince them that "there is no perfect system, so we should just mix the two!". Other than that, the article already states it's a fallacy:
Luis Torres
You sound like Holla Forums dropping a bunch of Autism Level-and-race studies they found on google and haven't read, fuck off
David Robinson
Disgusting tbh
Austin Scott
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Andrew Bell
You are a fucking idiot if you think posting a dozens of links to shit is a convincing argument.
inb4
Luis Torres
I'm not saying it is an argument, but I'm providing sources that show that there are argument and help others on the board to argue for it. Of course date dumping isn't an argument, but got unreasonably annoyed by that.
Blake Nguyen
OP is a faggot who should post more tits.
Ethan Garcia
Damn this girl is thicc as fuck. Spain?
Ryan Harris
Thank you user, that's me.
Christopher Anderson
P-post pics
Nicholas Hill
Go back to >>>/fem/
Tyler Green
No u
Noah Cook
post more pics tbh
Adrian Carter
This.
Jonathan Ward
Don't be a fallacy fallacist. The point here is that people think socialism = 100 gorillion and at the same time dismiss capitalism's death toll because fuck you that's why. You bring up that the "free market" kills millions every year so they either have to admit that capitalism is shit or that their argument is extremely poor.
Jaxon Lopez
but capitalism isn't just the free market. Going down that lane is excellent later on. Insisting in state capitalism is necessary to be theoretically coherent.
