View source for Random Argument: Communism vs Capitalism

[LONG] This is a very cohesive response to some common misconceptions with communism. It’s lightly sourced but concised enough to get most of y’all more insight on “what even is communism”? 

I was talking with someone about the adaptability of communist theory. I made the point that communism doesn’t look like it does in other places that practice communism because the system has to take the material and historic conditions of a people into consideration. Russia needed Leninism, not Marxism. China needed Maoism, not Leninism or Marxism. The communist systems of the Americas has yet to be invented. Our –ism doesn’t exist yet. The name for it comes *AFTER* it’s built.

The person I’m talking to says “very time you say it "adapts," you're proving my point. It never works as written so it has to be forced to fit a country, and that forcing is where people get hurt.” 

My response:

I'm legitimately confused here because I'm viewing the adaptability of communism as a positive and as a sign that it DOES work but you're holding a perspective that's the complete opposite. 

To me, it makes perfect sense because a big thing about Marxism is the understanding of the historical and material conditions of *anything*. Communism isn't made to be a universal ideology the same way that no other ideology is. American government is different from British government despite both being liberal democracies--by your logic, liberal democracy is flawed and shouldn't be used? Or do you understand that the material and historical conditions of Americans are different from British which results in diverging government systems? 

I can understand your point about centralized power. I can maybe agree with this point after you've explained it a bit more. I'd say that communist revolutions generally loosened the centralized power they inherited from their predecessor states. Like Czarist Russia wasn't any less consolidated than Soviet Russia. 

There are situations like North Korea where this happens, absolutely, but the general argument here is that some states are forced into more aggressive political organizing based on a strategic response to the USA. This is mentioned in the CIA doc too. Why does North Korea have an aggressive dictatorship? Because the USA killed most of their male population, bombed every square inch of their land, and threatened to create a no-mans-land using nuclear bombs. We are still at war with North Korea and it's the most militarized border on Earth. 

Have you ever wondered *why* the Korean War happened? Why we even cared enough to slaughter most of the North Koreans and drop more bombs on them than we did globally during WW2? We're taught "domino effect to stop communism" but they don't tell you how the Koreans, after being victims of Japanese colonialism, before being victims of Chinese overlordship, rejected the USA's de-facto colonialization of the Korean penninsula post-WW2. 

They don't educate you with the fact that when the USA took over we did a survey of pre-democracy Korea and found that 70% of Koreans were going to vote in communism. They don't tell you how the USA installed a dictator over Korea, converted Christian and all, and then those 70% of people lead a popular uprising against an installed puppet to enact the system they actually wanted. The Koreans weren't interested in another colonial overlord. Same thing happened in Vietnam--the Vietcong were the citizens who rose up against US's colonial overlording because popular opinion was pro-communism but the USA was willing to commit a genocide to stop that from happening 

I outright invite you to fact check me on this. I value the truth which is why I know what I know and say what I say. Prove me wrong. 

"Famines", I'm not going to argue specifics anymore about this. Global capitalism starves around 10 million people to death each year per the UN's World Food Program (<nowiki>https://www.wfp.org/.../world-wealth-9-million-people-die</nowiki>...). Know what, I'll give you 100 million people starved to death because of famines in communist countries over 100 years. Global capitalism kills 10x more than that number every year. Period. There's the UN report from 2021 for you to view yourself. If you're going to say something like "nuanced conditions" or try to excuse the deaths away then just know that I'll be able to excuse the famines away from any communist society--mostly because food insecurity is a huge problem for every society. I should know because I'm in that 10% of Fayette households with free school lunches and our lives would be radically different if we faced more severe food insecurity. 

"Made worse with state policy" there is actually a wonderful podcast episode about this from Robert Evans, communist, on 

Behind the Bastards. So the idea of "made worse with state policy" is something I can agree with based on what policy we're talking about. Ending the practice of a minority of landowners owning a majority of the land which they just rent out to the very farmers using the land. We call that sharecropping around these parts and that's a highly discouraged form of economics, even within our system that still uses slave labor for farming. 

<nowiki>https://www.iheart.com/.../part-one-the-russian-scientist</nowiki>....

But if we want to talk about how they were being silly billies thinking that revolutionary *thought* could alter the material world as if it could happen if we just *dreamed* about the revolution enough? Yeah, those were silly. Planting a shit ton of seeds together with the idea that "if humans work better when we work together then why not seeds" is objectively stupid.

Do we need to talk about RFK's objectively stupid food policies rooted in capitalist thought or can we skip this point too?

"Soviet gulag worse because workers more efficient"

I'm also just going to give you every negative point you want to argue against the Gulag system. US capitalism was built on slave labor. US capitalism still exists on slave labor. The US constitution makes our country the only country on Earth with legalized slavery. The condition of slavery? Convicted criminal. The USA is 4% of the global population but 25% of the total prison population. We have more prisoners, in total and per capita, than every other country on Earth. The minimum wage for convict labor in the South, where a majority of the inmates are Black, Hispanic, and poor whites? $0/hr. I haven't read this AP report but I don't think I have to: <nowiki>https://fortune.com/.../prison-labor-inmates-face-injury.../</nowiki>

So US capitalism imprisons us, incarcerates us, and enslaves us like no other place on Earth. I'll give you Gulags lol, capitalism is much more brutal. You could at least have your family with you in the Gulags if they wanted to brave the weather

Pointing out the problems with capitalism and then comparing them to communism is totally valid actually. Global capitalism starves more people than communism ever could, China is now the top producer of food worldwide, the communist policy obviously works better.

Markets are compatible with communism. Look up Mutualism, <nowiki>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory)</nowiki>

China does allow for some private enterprise but they make it a point to ensure there is no political power with the capitalist class. They don't let their capitalists own politicians. But this is further proof that they're not communist because they outright say that they're not communist. We're actually looping back to the entire reason for this comment thread lol. They are a communist government transitioning China into a communist society. If you don't understand that then you don't understand basic communist theory because that concept makes *perfect* sense to someone with an elementary understanding of communism.

So what you're defining as "private property" is actually the tricky way the capitalists have taught you the word. We can go back to the very definitions of this concept with Adam Smith (who wasn't the "father of capitalism" btw, Marx was the guy who defined capitalism).

Private Property has a specific definition in economics: property that you profit from. You can read through contemporary economists at the time to get the same defintion, Richardo or whoever. "I own this land which I rent for profit", "I own this factory which I keep the profits from", etc. The definition has a specific use definition: the owner doesn't work for the profit, they extract from the property. Private Property.

If *you* own a farm and *you* farm the land then it's not private property. That's personal property. Your house, your car, your toothbrush--all of that is *your* property, even under full Communism.

It’s interesting you bring up property rights because you actually get MORE property rights under communism. Mostly because you everyone becomes a small business owner in their own right and engage in workplace democracy. It’s also ironic because, as I mentioned before, China has a constitutional guarantee to property, Article 13: Article 13 Citizens’ lawful private property is inviolable. The state shall protect the right of citizens to own and inherit private property in accordance with the provisions of law. The state may, in order to meet the demands of the public interest and in accordance with the provisions of law, expropriate or requisition citizens’ private property and furnish compensation.

You say “everyone being forced into a collective isn’t freedom, it’s just the state owning everything for you”. What does this even really mean? Do you think it’s freedom when a handful of billionaires own and control so much of the economy that most people will never, ever, own real property? US home ownership rates are like 50% compared to 80%+ in the communist and formerly communist countries.

Like I said before. I value the truth. Fact check me on all of this. I’m a communist precisely because I’m a seeker of the truth and I like to learn about things. It also helps that I remember literally everything I’ve ever learned (thanks autism lol).