Directed mainly to the Marxists, but are China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea or Venezuela socialist states...

No.

Because they do not fit the definition of s socialist society: being classless, stateless and moneyless.

No. There have never been.

yes communism can do no wrong

(kills millions) (takes away all rights)

(no freedom)

Do the workers in any of these countries own the means of production?

China is the future of Capitalism.
Cuba tried to go for socialism, at least it has good healthcare and education.
Vietnam got fucked by US.
True Korea (autocorrect when, BO?) is an authoritarian state capitalist state. Like Stalin's USSR.
Venezuela is capitalism with state intervantion and fucked by US.

There has never been "socialism" as there can be socialism in a single country.
There are and have been attempts for socialism.

BUT US FUCKED THEM ALL

Have workers ever owned the means of production? Not even a troll, just wondering if anyone has ever met your gold standard of socialism.

fucking tankies

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I can agree with these

I can agree only if we consider it in a 'Chinese NEP' since 1978, and it's good because you can't have socialism in backwards shitholes anyway

Private business was legal in the USSR too. I didn't read up about this Cuba decision, but if the legalized private enterprise doesn't feature exploitation and such it's still socialism

kek

By this point we just false flag post hyper-tankie bait to get mad over.

In USSR it was completely normal to have a small piece of land, family enterprises, even private housing was permitted, re-selling of used goods.

So all these deaths in the 20th century. Were they a result of a struggle to implement socialism or were individuals using socialism as a meme to justify their self-serving power trips?

Partially. As practically all states on the planet.

"Socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly." (c) Lenin

I.e. the question divides itself into two questions:
1) Does the state exercise some sort of control over the means of production?
2) Is the state made to serve the interests of the whole people?

The degrees of Yes to those question determine the level of Socialism.

NB: control over means of production does not necessarily mean direct control. Worker ownership of the means of production fits description of Socialism.

See above. To a lesser or greater degree all modern countries are Socialist.

That doesn't sound bad at all.

All these things are indeed completely normally in a capitalist country like the USSR.

Both.

In the USSR workers owned the means of production more than anywhere and anytime

Any good links on how this worked in practice under a centrally planned command economy?

Yeah, so?

In practice, they traded.

Shit answer. Say I'm a machine operative working in a medium sized factory who decides what we make and what if half of us don't like the new order cause reasons?

Doesn't matter; what matters is how it is decided.

Yeah.

Depends.

I mean, you have equipment already, do you not? It's kinda specific thing. What exactly do you suggest to do? Scrap the factory and demand the state to give you money to build you a new one?

Just half might not be enough. Half plus one is a bit better.

Either way worker Soviets are a thing. You have representative and so on. Stuff can be negotiated, if that's what you are asking.

Basically yes. I'm just wondering how the democratic workplace works in practice. Case study or links. I mean this

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Sounds like a pretty sweet deal for the employees, but still operates under the capitalist system. It doesn't turn a profit, it's kaput. Is it considered a step in the right direction and if all businesses were run along these lines, what would be the next step towards socialism?

Top kek

1.China is lead by Communist Party
2.That makes marxism mandotory subject in school,just like Poland did under communism along SU
3.Strict party discipline
4.Ideological debate within the party
5. Party is ruled by democratic centralism(marxist-leninist practice, used on SU)
6.National congress and polibyro meetings are limited to few days(just like in SU)
7.Multiple parties form "United front".(For example National congress of SU had 23% of it`s members as independents and not members of any party)
8.State owns nearly all land in country collectively

Sounds more like market socialism than free market capitalism to me. Hong Kong is definitely free market capitalist.

A failed state

Just like the USSR, then.

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This is retarded, that 48% controls more than 50% of Chinese GDP.

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Nature of market socialism within any market economy is that it has to trade and operate within an economy that has capitalists and corporations that are owned by them. Ideological puritanism leads us to nowhere.

But China isn't market socialist.

The means of production are not social - public - in the hands of those who work.

It's pure capitalism.

Mate, people don't even own the means of production there, and now you're saying it's okay if a major part of the economy is run in Capitalist fashion. We're reaching the point where every country could be called socialist.

Of course you have to trade within a capitalist world. But it's not socialism yet!
And if socialism is really your goal, why lie and say you've achieved it already? You thinkonfusing the Proletariat is leading us somewhere?

*think confusing

Did you elect your manager at work? If the answer is no, you don't have socialism.

pick one you retard

sauce on that lelnin quote plz

This.

None of them are or were socialist at any point in time. They match no definition of the term used prior to Stalin. Lenin considered the USSR to be state-capitalist. The 2nd revision of the Soviet constitution, around 1936, is when the Soviet Union formally considered itself socialist and Stalin declared socialism to have been achieved close to completion of the second 5 year plan(I think around 1937?) as a propaganda move. Ever since then various nationalist regimes have modeled their nations in a similar fashion to the Soviets for aid, political ties, and because Soviet state-capitalism was a fairly incredible success at industrializing the nation. It also doesn't help that western governments/media called them communists/socialists to help demonize those movements in the west.

None of them are socialist. Venezuela is the closest, but it basically has
capitalism with lots of cooperatives and nationalization.

Socialism doesn't need to have anything to do with the state. Cooperatives are socialist.

I'm pretty sure that's about as much of a lelnin quote as that "We need to corrupt capitalist youth with jewry" propaganda piece.

Neither cooperatives or state enterprises are socialist in and of themselves, at most they're simply a means of transitioning to socialism. Socialism is the complete socialisation of production and ownership, and is therefore incompatible with individual firms.

Just think of it as one big co-op.

It's "Can We Go Forward If We Fear To Advance Towards Socialism?" (October, 1917)

Lenin specifically explains to the delusional anarkiddies and leftcom how the next step towards Communism will look like and why is it okay to have state-managed economy (provided state is democratically controlled) at this stage.

You are taking things too literally. State involvement is not limited to appointing bureaucrats via a convoluted and opaque process.

You can spin however you want it, but if state dictates the terms (legally defines acceptable use) of MoP - for example, forbidding people to hire other people to work on their MoP - such direct involvement into "private economical life" (tm) effectively means that state claims (at least partially) ownership of all MoP. Monopolises MoP in other words.

I like the part where lenin distinguishes between socialism and the transition to socialism. Stalinists seem to miss this part.
I also like that he doesn't once mention co-ops, but instead regards state monopolies answering to the soviets as being the transitional form.
Based Lenin.

How can you have degrees of socialism? Either the the mops are collectively owned or they're not.

im starting to think that tankies are Holla Forumsacks in disguised making stupid shit like this as to undermine the left.

sure man, as long as the government call themselves lefty is true. governments never lie ever, ever. they are always right and i should believe everything they say always, always.

Buddhism stresses the that the individual should seek his own enlightenment,to be selfish in developing his own character.

This "selfish" concentration on your own needs,your own material existence leads to seeing this need in others and developes compassion.

Pure capitalism doesn't lead to this insight,and pure socialism doesn't lead to personal growth.

There has and never will be a "socialist state"," a christian or buddhist" society until the majority of mankind is enlightened.

the majority of mankind may not be capable of this.

There is such a difference in people that some people's opinions make them seem like aliens to me.

Where is the common ground?
Will they ever be capable of feeling compassion for people from a completely different culture?

This may not be possible without a change in human nature.

How?

Genetic manipulation?

Artificial intelligence?

Or something completely unknown?

A technological singularity

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Dogmatic formalism I sense within you.

Let's say there is a state where workers managed to forbid capitalists to pollute air with smoke from capitalists factories and a state where they managed not.

Did the workers in the first state exercise a degree of ownership over private property of capitalist or did they not?

inb4 no true Scotsman meme

Our defintion of socialism has not changed.

Explain to me how social ownership means anything without social decision-making.

Explain to me why there was no social decision-making.

The politburo and nomeklatura weren't elected as far as I'm aware.

Are you saying that a Law, passed under the spectre of class struggle, which "regulates" how some capitalist may exploit his workers, is the same as if the workers had ownership of the means of production?

This is retarded.

What the hell are you talking about? Also, Politburo wasn't the one in charge.

Is not a real word. Soviet administration could get appointed in any ways. It's hardly a uniform and properly defined thing.

No. I'm saying that workers managed to exercise a degree of ownership over the means of production. That ownership is not a binary concept.

If you have some item, and someone else is telling you what you can and cannot do with it, does this item truly and fully belong to you?

Yes, because the item is mine. The surplus-value is mine; thus the profits are also mine.

Explain.

Item is yours, because it is yours? It's called circular logic, comrade. It doesn't actually prove anything.

Taxes. Ever heard of them?

Nomenklatura is not a real thing. It is slang word for administration. You cannot lump every single paper-pusher together and think that they are all the same. Some get elected, some get appointed, they hold different posts, have different obligations and powers. It's impossible to prove anything, because the whole concept doesn't even exist in the context you think it exists.

Politburo basically gets elected by Central Committee.
Central Committee is in charge of the Party.
Central Committee gets elected by members of the Party - 20 mil members by 1989 (i.e. anyone can get in).
Party itself is in charge (partially) of cadre politics of USSR. Not executive decisions.

Thus, Politburo has a lot of influence, but holds little to no direct power. Saying that it's running USSR is just dumb.

Consider Chief Justice of US: he is an important man and has a lot of influence. If he decides to cause you some problems, he has a lot of ways to do it. But you can't say that he is in charge of US, can you? That would be PotUS. The same is with USSR: actual executive decisions are done by the Presidium.

If I own something, it is mine. You are arguing semantics.

Now are you really implying that a tax - collected through a governing body - is the same as ownership? Because it's not. Although Microsoft is being taxed by every single country in the Earth, I am not a collective owner of it.

You can tax the profits all you want, changing the rate which profits arise or decline, but the surplus-value itself remains in my possession.

[insert an image that says "you tried" with a deformed star here]

Chávez is not socialist.
youtu.be/mE84o4Yxh70?t=3m25s

no. recently for some reason shitload of revisionist apologists arrived in /marx/, claiming the same thing that tard said. most of /marx/ view modern "socialist" countries as revisionist and straight up capitalistic.

So, what you're saying is, the Politburo wasn't democratically elected?

Socialism is when government provides services, all nations on Earth are socialist, it's just a matter of degree.

No, idiot. Socialism is when government takes the country's economic output and gives it to the poor.

No
No
No
Yes
No

North Korea is the only one of those that still technically have the means of production in the hands of the proletariat. They're still revisionist though.

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Is it Socialism Checklist:

__Social production is not carried out through money-mediated commodity-exchange.
__Individuals do not reproduce themselves via the procurement of goods via exchange on the market.
__Wage-labour is not the predominant form of labor.
__Money in it's capitalistic function is no longer the precondition and result of production.
__Production is coordinated on a world scale without interfacing at any point with money-dominated exchange-based social formations.

That's the bare minimum.

If money exists, if wage-labour exists, if the state as an entity apart from society exists, and if firms produce for markets, then it's not socialism.

I don't doubt that some blocs within "socialist states" are communists or marxists, but intentions matter little when at best these entities can only create quasi-welfare states that are still within a capitalist world.

From my understanding, there are no bourgeois. So by default, the proletariat is in control. They're far from perfect, of course. There's plenty of room for improvement in the whole "Democratic People's Republic" thing. thanks Songun

No, that's full communism. The bare minimum is workers' control over the means of production.

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whats up with all the recent revisionist apologizing lately?

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Holla Forums has always been like this unfortunately.
If you need a break just head on over to >>>/marx/

Glad you understand it.

The idea of a "transitional" phase is something that may have had a basis in Marx's time (though given his writings on the Commune that's doubtful), but the way in which it's been adapted from the development of the Russian Revolution is absurd. It's a bare example of turning the necessities imposed upon the proletariat into virtues.

In the period preceding the seizure of state power and the months afterwards, Lenin was ready to make no clear distinction between the measures taken upon by the proletariat in the process of revolution and communism itself. They were to be identical processes by which the proletariat would achieve socialist consciousness through socialist measures created in self-activity. Only that self-activity and relative immediacy of communism as the movement of the proletariat could constitute a real revolutionary process.

The absolute destitution of Russia during the war and the failure for revolution to generalize across the continent broke down proletarian self-activity. The transition stage was always an imposition due to the particular circumstances of the period. Marx himself in Volume III of Capital states that among the very first measures of the revolution would have to be the abolition of money.

Tankies make me lose the will to live.

It's impossible to abolish money in the current homogeny.

I am arguing practice. Not abstract theories (Idealism).

Concept of ownership implies your right to decide what happens to the object. If you are not allowed to make some decisions - your ownership is effectively reduced.

Thinking that there is no difference between owning a car you are allowed to ride and a car you are no allowed to ride - is dumb.

Both you and shareholders get money from Microsoft.
Both you and shareholders have a limited (you - via laws; at least in theory) ability to influence activity of Microsoft.

Please explain to me what is the practical difference here?

This is why you need DiaMat. Too much sloppy thinking otherwise. The very definition of surplus-value is that it is in possession of capitalist. And the whole concept of surplus-value is irrelevant to the ownership I am talking about.

Nope. That's what you are saying. As well as claiming that Politburo run things.

Might makes right, user. Read macks stinna

Will you curl up and die somewhere?

It is you who is absurd.

What you are trying to say is that there is no difference between the full-on capitalist states and socialist. Your idea is that Socialism should appear instantly out of thin air, in all the perfect glory of Communism, otherwise it's not real Socialism.

And then you pretend that this nonsense has anything to do with Marxism. Fuck you and your bullshit.

You seem to have this tendency to just reply "nah that's what you are". It's entertaining but also annoying.

In any case, you shouldn't tell people what they think user.

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