Muh ebil gommunism means muh surveillance state, muh government tyranny...

youtube.com/watch?v=hlbB3cmgPmo

historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-1999/documenting-the-death-toll-research-into-the-mass-murder-of-foreigners-in-moscow-1937-38

marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1938/trial/

you mean like: Catalonia, Kurdistan, Paris commune, Cuba and so on ?

Better not talk shit about Cuba.

Is that some sort of typo?
Because Cuba is totally down with the surveillance state stereotype.

Cuba is less of a surveillance state than most western countries, including America.

You can't.

Kill yourself instead.

Point out that Orwell was a socialist critiquing Stalinism in particular, which was so common among socialists that it has its own name: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Stalinist_left

The dictatorships of the 20th century can only be understood in historical context. It was either Stalin or a literal monarchy.

As Stokely Carmichael said, your credit card company knows more about you than Stasi ever could.

And look, if you really want to waste your time arguing with normies then just get a book like Black Against Empire and read all the shit they've done to the Panthers. The Soviet state was brutal because there was more dissidence, but the way they dealt with it was no different than the american way, or the european way.

And after you talk about the facts, tell them that if it was the Cuban or Chinese government doing these things to its citizens they'd call it authoritarianism, but since it's the American government they call it "justifiable" because the Panthers were a "threat".

theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/cuban-hip-hop-scene-infiltrated-us-information-youth

When you can't even make music in peace, how the fuck are you going to lead an open, democratic society?

For a country in Cuba's position, that would be like a country about to be invaded deciding to have a pacifist, demilitarized society.

if you're right wing you're literally Hitler

t. Western media

Communism has been shit everywhere it's been tried. It inevitably stagnates whatever country is unfortunate enough to host it.

How many times do you have to hit yourself in the foot with a hammer before you decide it isn't a good idea?

/thread

Sure, we're assholes. Everyone knows that. But we're assholes that can offer people a half decent quality of life.

The only reason China is doing okay now is because they've relaxed their economic policies and geared themselves more towards capitalism.

How much evidence do you need? How much can the world provide? Can you even reason with retards that still believe communism is a good idea? We may never know

I just gave you an argument. Communist countries are shit to live in. Name one that isn't. (note: China has seen improved standards of living because of their recent relaxation of communist policies)

And it only 'sounds good on paper' if you're a fucking moron. It's based on fallacies about the human condition. It fails every time it's tried. You'd have to be buttfuck retarded to STILL think it works

By the way, you used the word 'literally' wrong, you sad, braindead child

Yugoslavia's market socialism turned it from a mostly rural nation into an exporter of cars. And as much of an asshole as Stalin was, he made Russia the first spacefaring nation and kept a lot of people fed and literate when it was otherwise not logistically possible.

And Cuba? They actually offered the US some immediate relief during Katrina, but the government turned it down. Let thousands of people die for PR. But Holla Forums would probably applaud this because Louisianans are mostly black :^)

No shit, Maoism was awful, but no one here will deny that.

Unless you live over blood diamonds or in a banana republic, in which case we'll send in PMCs to make your life a living hell if you don't give us your natural resources. Or if you're an oil exporter, but the last few times we tried that we ended up with Islamic fundamentalism that wants to nuke us into oblivion.

Oh and we'll also let rat turds and human corpses fall into the meat you need to eat for a healthy diet, and if you try to stop us we'll call in the Pinkertons.

Or maybe we'll let you die in a cave-in because having a mining operation that's up to safety code is just, like, too much work, man.

Jesus, what a simple reactionary you are. I've learned to expect at least some half-illiterate attempt at rekting the LTV or whatever, but you're really just throwing the easiest soundbites.

Anyway, at least learn what Marx's, Lenin's, etc attitude towards capitalism was before you come here. Historical development of socialism requires bourgeois institutions and a highly advanced stage of capitalism, this is 101 stuff. What we've grown used to call "communism" (as in: planned industrialization, state property, etc) is for the most part Russia's attempt of creating those institutions that would typically be attributed to capitalism by means of state intervention. It's not really something anyone wants to, could or should repeat.

And it's funny that you're talking about China, because you might lose that decent quality of life to those corners of the earth sooner than you realise. Then you can praise your government for being tough-guy "assholes" with people who fight for more.

To build on this for some clarity: the idea behind Classical Marxism is that a "dictatorship of the proletariat" will allow the state to naturally wither away as it is no longer necessary, but "dictatorship" is largely metaphorical insofar as the working class becomes the ruling class, not actual tyranny.

Stalinism was more of a syncretic mix of Classical Marxism and Russian populism, the latter overriding much of the former, which led to a government that chose to sustain its own existence and thus form a "red bourgeoisie", a new ruling class composed of bureaucrats.

True, Russia was a powerhouse, but don't take Cuba's survival as some miracle of perfect government. They received help from China and Russia. Still, I'd like to live in a place where there's at least a pretense of personal freedom. Communism and Fascism are the same in this regard - they destroy the individual for the benefit of the system.

end this meem

Genuine argument as I would make it:

Many attempts have been made to bring about democratic, peaceful, and open transitions to socialism/communism. In foreign countries (i.e. Chile, Indonesia) oppositions forces were supported by the dominant capitalist nations and those groups were slaughtered. The only ones that survived were militaristic and continued to survive by retaining their militarism, which had obviously undesirable social effects.

More open movements in those same western capitalism nations were largely infiltrated, coopted and either made inefficient (SDS, Occupy, etc.) or the more radical groups were pushed to illegal activity and imprisoned (see 1970s anywhere, even the fucking Congo).

The popular image of socialism was born out of the conflict between popular movements and the dominant power structure of capitalist states. The forgotten movements simply couldn't overcome these obstacles with their methods. Maybe they can in future, but the past is already written.

Also, I'd throw something in about how it's just as evil when NaSA does it as when google does. Governments aren't the only source of evil in the world. Nestle killed (intentionally, no less) many more than Mao could ever have (unintentionally) dreamed of.

Just tell them you don't want such things, and explain what you mean by communism. Then it's just a definition battle, either try to make them accept your definition of communism (which I assume is a classless, stateless, moneyless society) or drop the label.

It's either a utopia that will never exist or a real life dystopia.

That's how real life communism was, like in china and ussr. you must be amazingly idiotic to deny reality.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba

commie idiots prove they're retarded beyond down syndrome day after day. no wonder leftypol is the laughing stock of Holla Forums.

These type of arguments are pretty retarded. Yes, pharaohs were shitty dictators, but look at those miraculous pyramids they've built!

Of course, but I think this is fair game because of the US embargo.
Amusingly, Cuban "refugees" are protesting the easing relations with the US, and not merely because Cuba doesn't necessarily have to give up socialism, i.e. transitioning to markets with worker ownership. Everyone knows they're butthurt rich people and that the majority of them came to the US with little, if any hardship.

The dimension of authority and liberty is entirely separate from that of left and right, which is why political orientation as a single spectrum is retarded to begin with, especially the "horseshoe theory". Looking closely at each of these types of government shows important differences.

Mind you, Stalinism was a relic of the 20th century endemic to Russian history. It's nothing that communists planned on bringing about, and Stalin crushed tons of left wing movements that criticized him at all. You could argue that it's inevitable because of ideological flaws, but that is a wholly different debate.

And honestly, he wasn't really any worse than the czars.

if everyone's treated equally, how do you deal with some people doing better than others?

Two wrongs don't make a right, but this sounds pretty similar to the US's rap sheet.

You don't. We don't mind if it's not exploitative.

Does my credit card company go to my home while I am not there and move my items around so I could go crazy?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung ?

No, but I will if you want

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung#Modern_use_of_techniques

Individual well-being in society should not be defined by her position in the industrial production chain (or agricultural or w\e). You have rights now compatible with people who own million times more land than you – which wasn't the case in feudalism – does that make you feel bad?

ECHELON, PRISM, British GCHQ and US NSA, CIA, FBI…
literally any government ever, note Lenin saying (paraphrase) 'when we have the state there is no freedom, when we have freedom there is no state'
Mexico today

It's not super but yes I am making an equivalence argument, because that's easier than talking about saboteurs against the RSFSR. About the Stalinist purges and trials I have nothing to say.

Cuban "refugees" are similar to middle eastern and north african "refugees" in this regard. They don't care about their homeland, their host countries, or about how the world views them.

Agreed
And honestly, he wasn't really any worse than the czars.

Interesting, and agreed

This is historically accurate. Communism in 20th century was a catastrophe. Read Zizek and move on, these discussions are fucking stupid.

Zizek is retarded though.

but some jobs require more effort than others. how is a highly skilled professional/someone working a high risk job getting the same compensation as a low skilled worker/someone working a low risk job not exploitative?

it is though. working conditions are a big part of individual well-being.

I agree with North Africans, but I think the Syrians have a good reason to claim asylum and are being unfairly conflated with the lumpens from safe nations that didn't want them.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. People with riskier, more valuable jobs are going to need more.

You're right, and it's a shame that the Syrians as well as the Europeans have to pay for America's bullshit. In 200 years, I think the Western World will be a memory, like Rome. At least China and Japan seem to be doing okay… I hope their historians make note of every mistake we make.

so people who need more to do their jobs get paid more, leading to economic inequality. sounds like capitalism fam

My point is that everyone getting paid minimum wage is not the goal, retard. Communism is post-scarcity. They were be enough to meet everyone's needs, so societal roles will be filled by the people most suitable for them. Meritocracy will be made a reality.

Even when factoring in unavoidable imbalances of wealth, they will still be literally millions of times smaller than the differences in wealth we have under late capitalism.

The Western World is already becoming global, and even Middle Easterners with access to modern media love Western culture–when gigabit internet becomes the norm, you'll be playing online games with players that have Arabic screen names and they won't even think it's weird.

What you are seeing is the death of retarded Western European countries that were already pushing their luck. Sad it had to end this way.

but if it's a society where scarcity doesn't exist and everyone's needs are already met, what incentive is there to work and excel?
how do you avoid scarcity while imbalances of wealth are present? infinite resources?

There are always incentives. Personal profit and an eternal rat race to have the most useless crap is among the worst of incentives.
You'd be surprised how many people do what they do simply because they want to. The strive to perfect and accomplish is intrinsic to the human experience.

There is a difference between the means of production and the wealth an individual owns.
Post-scarcity means there is enough, not somehow unlimited, resources.

yes, because accomplishment tends to be rewarded, which creates the incentive for the strive. if everyone's treated equally anyway and the rewards are negligible, why would people be ambitious?
so why do people on welfare end up being completely useless and unambitious?

so there's enough for everyone, but there's even more enough so that more can be given to people who need more at any time?
how do you deal with some individuals acquiring more wealth than others though? how do you avoid classes forming due to wealth inequality?

Because people are not driven by greed naturally, at least not most of them. This is a cultural artifact borne from necessity.
Most people on welfare have jobs, actually. It's simply not possible to "moderate" capitalism, despite liberal wishful thinking.

…I don't think you understand what "enough" means.
Class is not determined by income, it is determined by relation to the means of production. A millionaire can be working class.

they are, it's called self-interest.
I'm talking about the people that get enough welfare to get by without holding down a job.
I understand it's a word that has no meaning as a quantifier. what does "enough" even mean in your post-scarcity context? it sounds incredibly vague.
but what prevents people from amassing wealth and buying their way into power?

Which is not greed.
If people will only do things to have more stuff, why is organized society even possible? Why are we not just murdering and looting at all times?
Most of these people are busy trying to raise their kids well enough to dig themselves out of the hole. Poverty is a cycle, you either starve or get forever dragged down by immediate necessity.
It means we no longer need to compete for resources, there is enough for everyone.
Who will they buy it from? Society will be collectively owned for individual benefit. There will be no reason for anyone to comply.
Rather, the main motivation for power will be religious divine truth or personal ego.

because humans survive better in groups. humans organize communities out of self-interest.
their kids are their own responsibility, if they get into a hole because of their kids then it's a hole of their own making.
but if there's no need to compete then people simply won't. if there's no competition there's no incentive to strive for excellence.
but then what's the point of working for surplus wealth if you can't spend it? you said
but if you already have your needs met without working, then working for surplus wealth you can't spend in a meaningful way implies that by definition you can only spend it on useless crap.
so the motivation for power still remains? if there's an intrinsic drive for power such as divine truth or personal ego then power is also a resource for which there is demand. if people demand power but they don't have it then power is a scarce resource, therefore the post-scarcity society is not truly post-scarcity.

Because they don't have the resources to implement it.
The Castros would go full Stasi if they had the means to do so.

What "resources" do you imagine Cuba lacks? Cameras and servers are not that high-tech.

Total false equivalency.
Those things are primarily focused on deterring/detecting/ external threats, not oppressing the populations of their own country.
Call me when the US or Britain opens their own chain of gulags and starts incarcerating/torturing their people for holding thoughts and opinions their governments don't like.

maybe they'd have the resources if they weren't commes :^)

ITT:
Pol saying commies are full surveillance when modern Capitalism has become the Orwellian nightmare.

CCTV in GB. Cops with too much authority in US. Constant war. Reing of fear.
THANX CAPITALISM!

how long did these last again?

...

Money, mostly.

But not that cheap if done on a national scale, either.
We're not talking about the kind of rinky dink security cameras you'd find in your local convenience store.You also have to factor in things like the infrastructure behind them, and the people who will man them.And it just gets more expensive the more automated it is.

Even if they did manage to do it on the cheap, it's still a lot of money they can't afford to spend when they are bringing in so little money and have to spend what they do have on things like healthcare and maintaining their military.

Cuba is mostly agricultural, they have two things in abundance, cheap sugar and tobacco, neither of which are terribly popular here, even if there wasn't the little matter of the trade embargo.The only other thing they really have is tourism, and that isn't going to bring them much money either, since there are other places in the Caribbean you can go for cheap, and have the extra added benefit of not being shadowed by state security or being locked into exclusive tourist areas.

Except they only say that about nationalists because the west (especially America, which is my personal experience) wants to create an international corporatocracy, so right wing nationalism is seen as disgusting and wrong but they are perfectly fine with expanding the power of corporations and returning right to the 1920s which is most definitely a rightist goal. They just distract you with 'liberal media' by complaining about sexists and racists to get you off the subject of what they really are afraid of, which is people who want to damage the corporate structure.

All you nead to create products is materials, tech and labor power.
Stop thinking Capitalism.

Lurk moar

Which is kinda the practical basis of socialism.
Don't care, don't change the subject.
No, it means you won't have an incentive. You are projecting personal feelings.
Because capitalist society is not some kind of law of physics.
At what point did I say no one will work? You are begging the question.
And all we do now is spend out excess money on useless crap.
My point is that there will be no material motivation for people to do what these egomaniacs say.

The only one of those things Cuba possesses is labor.
They have no indigenous tech sector, and they are distinctly resource poor.

It is a measure of purchasing power, or the means of exchanging one thing for another.
Cuba lacks it.

The process of automation is very expensive, I know this because the factory in which I work is currently implementing it.
Robots ain't cheap, and neither is restructuring the production process to accommodate them, hiring the experts you need to come in and program the damned things, designing and building specialty equipment to further facilitate them, etc.
We're talking at the very least a half-million for automating a single bank of two lathes, multiply that by however many machines in the factory we're talking about, and then figure in the overhead for bug-testing, altering the production process to suit and re-training the operators to use the new equipment.
It's a lot of fucking money.

How are they doing so good on medical, though?
They could get resource from other socialist countries.

Fact is, they just don't need to watch over the people at all times. They have police for that.

…

Unlike GB…

No, it is not. Money is a state-mandated medium for exchange. It is quite literally not worth the paper it is printed on apart from the state mandate, and it certainly is not a resource.

Britain went full sci-fi dystopia with its surveilance state. It is even worse than the U.S..

Yes, the process of automation requires significant resources. The thing is that once the machines are built the production process subsequently requires significantly less labor and materials. A network of cameras, phone taps, and computer monitoring systems like the ones that spy on every dark corner of the United States and Britain would require hardly any input after their installation.

And it costs more to maintain, simply by having more things that can go wrong.I've seen it first hand.Parts wear out, sensors go bad, etc.

True, it pays for itself eventually through increased productivity, but getting it to that point and then keeping it there, is a very money and labor intensive process.

And then you get to factor in the latest technological advances that could potentially moot everything you've done up to that point, and then have to spend a shitload more re-inventing the wheel.

Progress truly is a double-edged sword.

Is this poster real????

Yes.

Its not exactly easy to refute when the only real world examples of communism in action are China, North Korea, Cuba, the many obscure poverty-striken nations of Sub-Sahara Africa with ruling communist parties, the USSR (Which only got anywhere because of Nationalism, not communism, and even then it was a shithole), and Jonestown, which was such a shitty place to live everyone killed themselves

Not in anything but name for a long time.

Are you kidding me? FBI is exclusively for "domestic threat" and it is well known that the NSA collects and peruses data of burgers.

Burgerstan has already whipped its subjects into submission, killing striking miners, bombing MOVE, killing people like Fred Hampton through institutions like the FBI, the Army, the National Guard, the local police. Of course governments will kill subversives, there is no false equivalence here. Nowadays, for the most part, there are no subversives worth killing, it is easier to give them 'free access to the democratic forum', where the liberal ideology has a virtual monopoly, which screens out both communists and fascists. Besides, there is surveillance used at municipal levels such as the STINGRAY

Also Blacksites such as Chicago

You're right, China was actually much, much worse when it was full Communist, they didn't start becoming a moderate superpower until around 50 years ago when they started adoption more capitalist ideas

...

The FBI is a police agency at the federal level, which a lot of countries have, and they are for more than just "domestic threats" as the dozen or so executed Nazi spies they caught during the war could attest to.And the Rosenbergs.

So do most intelligence agencies, call me when they start actually oppressing people with what they have.

Bypassing the "China" and "True Korea" BS, tell me more about how capitalism made Nigeria a better place.. .. or .. Afganistan.. Or … Mexico.. Or even the USA!

WELL, FUCK YOU TOO!
Ok. What's your number?

fixed

M8, none of those places are perfect, but nothing you listed even comes close to being even comparable with the shitholes Communist has created

kinda, problems mostly appear with scaling
no, I'm talking about general behavior. but if you have different ideas for incentive, you're welcome to share them.
market forces kind of are.
no, I'm questioning why anyone would work under such circumstances.
but you said that's bad. if we agree spending money on useless shit is bad in this economy, why wouldn't it be bad in that one?
but if power is a resource that people want then attaining it will be a motivation.

fixed.

...

You talking about the US?

did the US President ask female citizens to stop using hair dryers?

No… But the economy is based on oil. And it fills up prisons and leaves homes empty..

every time

This is some Holla Forums tier trolling, comrade.

What the dollars value based on, then?

Only Cuba is relevant enough to be a reference point and Cuba coincidently has almost all things OP mentioned and is a poverty-ridden shithole.

sage

let me guess, gold standard means economy based on gold?

Why are they describing capitalist reality as a counter argument for communism?

US economy is based on currency, though…

Yeah because democratic countries never flaunt human rights and engage in tyrannical, self serving behavior

Oh wait

Ask them to explain very carefully what the difference between our current paranoia about terrorists and Stalin's paranoia about Trotsky supporters.

Then ask what the difference is between the war in Afghanistan and the War in Vietnam

Then ask whats the difference between a homeless shelter soup kitchen line and a soviet breadline is

youtube.com/watch?v=kOnIp69r6vg

"Representative democracy" is what the ruling class settles for when it can't have a straight up monarchy to make things simpler.

Basically. If the OP has to point that out to people they are probably beyond saving

Tell them that the real definition of Socialism is a system in which workers own the means of production. Tell them that George Orwell himself was a Socialist who wrote 1984 to remind people of the dangerous of Fascism. Tell them that the destruction of our civil liberties and surveillance are features of the modern Capitalist Imperialist state which uses the War on Terror, anti-communism etc. as excuses to strip the population of their civil liberties and wage endless wars in the third world.

George Orwell was not a socialist and he wrote 1984 as a critique of communism.

orwell.ru/library/articles/European_Unity/english/e_teu
He was a Democratic Socialist
1984 is a critique of totalitarianism broadly speaking, whereas Animal Farm was specifically a critique of Stalinism. 1984 does contain many elements of his Democratic Socialist beliefs within it however, especially in the section which talks about Goldstein's fictional book, "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism."

Rule of thumb.

If user says communism instead of socialism, user is pol.

Fucking Nestlè? Really? Gonna need sources for that one nigger.

Maybe Nestle not immidiately… But Chiquita… oh.. I mean… United Fruit Company..

Operations of multi-nats or trans-nat corporations are often carried out ostensibly by subsidiaries which actually operate in countries different than where the mother corporation is HQ'd. I highly recommend "Corporate Imperialism" by Norman Girvan about this issue. Corporations use economic leverage against foreign countries (you get the scraps from our operation or you get nothing). Basically you have to take the Marxist position that antagonism is inherent and the driving force of the system, and read between the lines of official corporate PR posturing (eg. 'our company always conforms to the highest ethical standards…') to see imperialism for what it is

Or this.
youtube.com/watch?v=Y888wVY5hzw

Seen this already. Burgerfat here, so link says

Thanks, capitalism! Also in my earlier post I said multinats and transnats have subsidiaries that operate in different countries…that was really stupid and tautological of me.

So, you can't read Das Kapital on mangafox, or watch anti-capitalist documentaries…

…

THE LEVEL OF FREEDOM IS TOO DAMN HIGH!