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No, it’s a dictatorship. Dictatorship of capital. Soviet union was also a dictatorship, which is why they also had elites that dictated how much of what you can have. It wasn’t because of the communism that they had elites, it was because it was a dictatorship.
Of course the funny thing about capital is that it tends to accumulate, so you get a dictatorship pretty naturally.
Happened to me. Lived in a building for multiple leases for $1100 -1300 a month over the course of seven years. Next renewal jumped to over $1800 per month. When I asked why, they said, "Because it’s what people are willing to pay. "
At least they’re honest.
Here in NY we have 1 year leases capped at an increase of 3% per year. However landlords can increase rent another 3% if they can show that they had to do upgrades or emergency repairs or some other nonsense. They’ve applied for and received this exemption to double our increase EVERY SINGLE YEAR I’ve lived there, and it seems there is nothing to stop them from doing it every year until the end of time.
The infuriating thing? There are no actual upgrades being done. The roads are constantly full of potholes. The water lines constantly spring leaks. The power is constantly cutting out - brownouts are common, and blackouts happen every winter. We are responsible for paying all our utilities, mowing the lawn, and maintaining our lots, and the office is apparently responsible for nothing and spends nothing upgrading or maintaining the park. But somehow they qualify for that extra 3% increase every single year without fail.
- I live in a trailer park owned by Horizon Land Management. There are youtube videos detailing how trailer parks used to be cheap housing for the poor, but now that private equity companies like Horizon are buying them up, they’re raising lot rent sky high and parasitizing the people who are so poor they can’t afford to leave. Trailers were the cheapest housing many of us could afford. Where else could we go? They basically suck the blood out of us like vampires.
turns out everything people hate about communism is actually just stuff capitalism does.
Say it louder for the people in the back
But we have to be moderately responsible for the outcomes instead of just throwing our hands in the air and giving up!
oh yeah, definitely! i agitate toward socialist (and anarcho-syndicalist) policy at every chance i get! On top of that, I’m also continuously attempting to plant subliminal ideations toward it among people with whom i interact on a daily basis putting it in terms my propaganda-poisoned colleagues’ minds might actually grasp–
'if only we could decide this democratically, huh?`
‘after all, we’re the ones who actually have to do the work and see how things transpire here on the front lines of the whole operation…’
‘nobody upstairs knows how things work around here better than us.’
‘btw don’t we have some kind of right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances, ACTUALLY…?’
‘idk i just like democracy bro ;3’
‘kinda sucks how our tax dollars are being spent to prop up a genocidal regime so they can give their citizens free healthcare while we’re stuck with nothing, doesn’t it…’
‘hey if you want cheaper eggs, i know a place near here…! it’s a co-op market owned and operated by the local farmers and a dozen fresh eggs is like … sometimes HALF of what the big chain stores charge!’
“ohhh i’m so sorry to hear your cable company treats you that way…! it’s awful! y’know, it seems like every time people ask a corporation to handle infrastructure it just makes more waste, fraud and abuse… but as for me, the fiber optic line to my house is fast and stable and cheap, and it’s owned by all us residents in my town. Municipally owned! I would love for you to have that too. wouldn’t you? why not ask your neighbors how they feel about it?”
all of these examples are exaggerated and hyperbolic for illustrative purposes. i usually have to be a lot more subtle in order to avoid tipping them into a performative faux-patriotic ‘four legs good two legs bad’ thought terminating cliche fugue state.
Sure, fuck it, that’s communism. Death to communism, instead we must create a classless stateless society!
You know what my eyes are opened too —capitalism is when hard working Americans get all the capital and communist leeches aren’t allowed to steal it just because they’re in charge.
You know what goes well with capitalism? Democracy! You vote on your sheriff, so why vote for who your boss is at work, and how many sick days everyone gets? Let’s go full capitalist!
Ya know, there might be something to that as a strat.
Words are just tools we made up. If fascists are willing to break the meaning of language to get what they want, maybe we can too!
Down with those communist fascists!!
Communism has needed a rebrand for a while now
Communism: “Look at me… I am the capitalism now.”
And we’ll protect our gloriously fought victory with a vanguard enforcing conformity to support the eventual relinquishing of power to the proletariat once there is no longer class and we have expanded our stateless society worldwide, thus vanquishing borders!
Just need to kill off done rabble rousing anarchists first…
The vanguard is the proletariat, just the organized section of it. They do not constitute their own class, they come from the proletariat and have the same relations to ownership of the Means of Production. The vanguard is not to “relinquish power,” but instead raise up the level of political education of the rest of the proletariat to their level.
The vanguard is not to “relinquish power,” but instead raise up the level of political education of the rest of the proletariat to their level.
They will never lmao, that would be the same as giving up power. Power is subjective. The vanguard may not de jure “own the means of production”, but they de facto “own the right to tell everyone what they’re allowed to do”, which can be worse. Once everyone has the same amount of power, nobody has power over anyone else.
And yet in every socialist country, literacy rates and education was made a top priority. Using the USSR as an example, literacy rates jumped from 20-30% all the way to 99.9% in around a decade, and education was made free, with professors and teachers seen as incredibly valuable members of society. This pattern has been followed in every socialist country. The truth of the matter is that it’s very difficult to educate people, it’s a complex matter that requires nuanced decisions on how we teach, what we teach, and more.
Further, “power” is not subjective. There is no supernatural force called “power,” what exists is what is material. Administration and management of production and human labor is socially necessary for large-scale mass production, the type that is necessary for communism to begin with. To dogmatically oppose any and all hierarchical organization does not actually help the working classes in breaking their chains, so to speak, but instead holds them back.
Thats objectively an elevated class imbued with power over others.
I know it’s hard but you really gotta question whether what you’re reading is absurd in context. If it is, it’s possible it’s sarcasm.
Managers are objectively not an elevated class, assuming they have the same relations to ownership of the means of production, in Marxist analysis. You don’t need to read Capital for this, Marx’s Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy makes Marx’s position explicit:
Marx responding to Bakunin
Will the entire proletariat perhaps stand at the head of the government?
In a trade union, for example, does the whole union form its executive committee? Will all division of labour in the factory, and the various functions that correspond to this, cease? And in Bakunin’s constitution, will all ‘from bottom to top’ be ‘at the top’? Then there will certainly be no one ‘at the bottom.’ Will all members of the commune simultaneously manage the interests of its territory? Then there will be no distinction between commune and territory.
The Germans number around forty million. Will for example all forty million be member of the government?
Certainly! Since the whole thing begins with the self-government of the commune.
The whole people will govern, and there will be no governed.
If a man rules himself, he does not do so on this principle, for he is after all himself and no other.
Then there will be no government and no state, but if there is a state, there will be both governors and slaves.
i.e. only if class rule has disappeared, and there is no state in the present political sense.
This dilemma is simply solved in the Marxists’ theory. By people’s government they understand (i.e. Bakunin) the government of the people by means of a small number of leaders, chosen (elected) by the people.
Asine! This is democratic twaddle, political drivel. Election is a political form present in the smallest Russian commune and artel. The character of the election does not depend on this name, but on the economic foundation, the economic situation of the voters, and as soon as the functions have ceased to be political ones, there exists 1) no government function, 2) the distribution of the general functions has become a business matter, that gives no one domination, 3) election has nothing of its present political character.
The universal suffrage of the whole people…
Such a thing as the whole people in today’s sense is a chimera…
…in the election of people’s representatives and rulers of the state — that is the last word of the Marxists, as also of the democratic school — [is] a lie, behind which is concealed the despotism of the governing minority, and only the more dangerously in so far as it appears as expression of the so-called people’s will.
With collective ownership the so-called people’s will vanishes, to make way for the real will of the cooperative.
So the result is: guidance of the great majority of the people by a privileged minority. But this minority, say the Marxists…
Where?
…will consist of workers. Certainly, with your permission, of former workers, who however, as soon as they have become representatives or governors of the people, cease to be workers…
As little as a factory owner today ceases to be a capitalist if he becomes a municipal councillor…
…and look down on the whole common workers’ world from the height of the state. They will no longer represent the people, but themselves and their pretensions to people’s government. Anyone who can doubt this knows nothing of the nature of men.
If Mr. Bakunin only knew something about the position of a manager in a workers’ cooperative factory, all his dreams of domination would go to the devil. He should have asked himself what form the administrative function can take on the basis of this workers’ state, if he wants to call it that.
Power and hierarchy is not class. Class is a specific relation to ownership of the means of production. Principals and teachers are both proletarian, yet the principal’s job responsibility is in managing teachers, while the teacher’s job is to educate. Administrative labor is socially necessary and compensated in wages, not via ownership and entitlement to the profits of accumulation and exploitation.
Your condescension is undue. You are free to take issue with administration and managerial labor, but to conflate those with class is a horrendous misreading of class dynamics and muddies the water when discussing Marxism and anarchism.
I’m not discussing Marxism.
You were attacking the idea of a vanguard as has been utilized in Marxist-led revolutions.
Yes.
Nobody:
You with sectarian ragebait:
I said classless stateless society, not multi level marketing scam.
Look, you just need to build your downstream. I take your bribes and give you some power. Then your downstream bribes you for parts of it. The more downstream you have the more bribes you get. With no borders, the whole world can be your downstream. It’s not upper and lower class, it’s upstream and downstream! See? Classless.
I wish anarchy would work.
The thing where a warlord tells you what to do? No, death to anarchy, instead let’s have a society where hierarchies are abolished and org charts are all rhizomatic and voluntary, with vigilant critiques of power differential with an eye to equalizing them as much as possible?
Sorry, what do you think anarchy is? Because what you’re describing, no hierarchal society, voluntary… Uhh, THAT’S the definition of anarchy. Why do so many people think anarchism is just synonymous with chaos? That’s just called chaos.
Homie is literally posting from an anarchist instance. This is satire lol.
My autism strikes again
Anarchy is a society completely free from government, coercive authority, or imposed hierarchies. While it is popularly misunderstood to mean chaos or lawlessness, it actually advocates for a system based on voluntary cooperation, self-organization, and mutual aid among individual
Instance checks out
warlordism isn’t anarchy.
/woosh
I needed to test some aerodynamics stuff.
What?!? Are you ok comrade?
Sounds good, count me in!
good news
Anarchy is a society completely free from government, coercive authority, or imposed hierarchies. While it is popularly misunderstood to mean chaos or lawlessness, it actually advocates for a system based on voluntary cooperation, self-organization, and mutual aid among individual
Bad news: opiates and fentanyl
This is usually my clench-point with anarchy. Yeaaaah, but… man, should we really have heroin in the 7/11 snack isle?
Libertarians: YEP!
wait, man, fuck. I get education and healthcare… kinda fixes this, but… does it, tho?
how does 711 operate in a stateless classless society to begin with?
Armed militias and unchecked gangs of armed thugs hired for enforcement and security.
Then again, we’re both thinking way too far ahead. Who’s producing medicine and opiates in an anarchist society?
Anarchy is a society completely free from government, coercive authority, or imposed hierarchies. While it is popularly misunderstood to mean chaos or lawlessness, it actually advocates for a system based on voluntary cooperation, self-organization, and mutual aid among individual
in a classless society, how can anyone employ anyone else? I think you’re lost, and you should wander back to a liberal conclave
Anarchy is a society completely free from government, coercive authority, or imposed hierarchies. While it is popularly misunderstood to mean chaos or lawlessness, it actually advocates for a system based on voluntary cooperation, self-organization, and mutual aid among individual
In a classless society, how is anyone cared for if no one has the intrinsic motivation to do so? Because it’s the nice thing to do? Lmao.
The main issue with anarchism is that absolute freedom for you is a double-edged battle-axe. It assumes all people are good and trustworthy without any guardrails if they aren’t.
At least if anarchy were able to work there would be no “leaders” at all
Yes!
Don’t forget moneyless.
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“The elite telling the working class to stand in line and dictating what to pay for a living expense. That is not capitalism”
Man, this is on the same level as “nazism is leftist ideology because national SOCIALISM!!!”
There’s nothing “elite” about the Epstein class
Communism is when bad decision of politician affects entire nation.
Capitalism is when bad decision of a rich person affects entire nation.
Difference is that one of those people is elected in democratic system.
Sometimes forcefully elected
There are people who would be elected endlessly thanks to their sheer competence. My town had one such mayor, but opposing party passed country-wide limit to amount of times one can be re-elected.
And I bet americans would love to still have Teddy Roosevelt as their president, especially now, though that might require a bit more than forceful election, a bit of necromancy perhaps.
The person who wrote the comment must be lobotized.
That’s a troll
Seems to me they already have been
I have a MAGA family member who says things like that all the time. Usually he starts by saying “the socialist aristocracy did [insert complaint about capitalism]…”
This is why the USSR and PRC did cultural revolutions and re-education camps.
You don’t understand! Communism is when bad things. And in capitalism nothing bad can happen, it can only good happen.
It is what American boomers think “communism” is.
It’s also not too far separated from the Soviet Union, which represents “communism” in many peoples minds despite its fairly rapid departure from Marxist ideals.
The USSR did not “rapidly depart from Marxist ideals.” I don’t know where this mythologized version of Marxism originated, but Marx was explicit about wanting a dictatorship of the proletariat, a democratically controlled state that had public ownership as the principal aspect of the economy. This was the only path Marx saw as a transition to communism.
Also, rent was mostly a nominal thing as far as it related to disposable income in the USSR, which is completely different from the US. Makes sense considering the USSR was run by the working classes and the US is run by capitalists.
Ah yes, the Soviet union where rent capped out at 10% of your salary, and that’s just in places without any labor incentives. If you were in a new industrial town your rent was free since it was you doing a favor to the people in moving to a remote area and having to live in a new city. That’s totally the same thing as American capitalism and totally opposed to Marxist ideals…
10%! Where can I sign up?
1930s-1980s USSR. (Gorbachev’s reforms really fucked with some areas before the collapse but the edge of the union was unharmed until the 1991 collapse wherein many former states of the USSR experienced homelessness as a problem for the first time in 70 years.)
Also some parts of China have rules of 0-25% of your salary depending on location, whether or not you were a rural citizen before moving to a rented home, and why you moved. (not that normal rent is far off from that thanks to the fact only 8% of the Chinese population doesn’t own a home.)
For fun, when I was in school, I’d ask people what they thought of this and that all the time and I was very much impressed that “what is ____” are questions that don’t have answers. Our education is fucked.
Generally, to boomers capitalism and communism is absolutely summed up with that drunk in the grocery store story.
Consumer choice is typically the vibes.
Whatever you criticisms of the USSR, they weren’t charging folks 25% or even 11% of their income in rent. I
Communism is when capitalism does something I don’t like
Lol “Communism”.
I mean, it is moving past capitalism and into something else, but that thing is feudalism.
It’s wild to me that we just casually call them land lords… I’m literally just a serf paying rent to my lord. “Tenant” is just putting lipstick on it.
That has to be a troll account.
I have to agree.
Poe’s law is a bitch as always, but between the display name, the flags and the message itself (particular words as well as the fact that the statement is bordering on incoherent), I’m fairly certain this position is not sincerely held by the poster.
Now, whether it’s a leftist satirizing unhinged right-wingers or a troll account posing as leftist to portray them as deranged - your guess is as good as mine (though I’m leaning toward the former).Not at all. Here in South Africa, the ruling ANC has spent the last thirty years demonstrating what perfect neoliberal capitalists they are… yet you’ll still find plenty of local neo-nazis blubbering about the (supposedly) “socialist” ANC.
“Everything I don’t like is socialist”
Sounds like the next thirty should be fairly predictable.
I wish I could be that optimistic - this place is a reactionary time-bomb waiting to go off.
Forget about reeducation camps, you can’t undo what never happened. After the revolution we need a massive programme of education camps, these people are politically illiterate and doesn’t have any idea how anything works.
