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I would say it's plain communism: nothing is yours, the state owns everything (including your life). But I guess the difference between crown and communism is
by koonsolo 5y ago
I would say it's plain communism: nothing is yours, the state owns everything (including your life).
But I guess the difference between crown and communism is best explained in Animal Farm.
- permo-w 5y agoIt’s just authoritarianism
- nickpp 5y agoThey always come together.
- BuckRogers 5y agoThat's because people don't understand the words that they use. Even people that label their countries communist. 'Communist' and 'nation' are mutually exclusive terms. There's no such thing as a communist nation, it's not possible. Communism as originally defined by Marx is lack of a state. You can start another 100 countries and call them communist but they're really only Leninist (or derivative ideological strains). Guys starting with Lenin took the rather popular idea of statelessness, which is required to completely eliminate the master-slave / lord-serf / employer-employee relationship of capitalist employment, and used that popular economic ideology to create a vanguard state to work towards communism. It was always an attempt, either sincere or not, as a jumpstart towards communism. I'm not a communist, nor am I a sympathizer. I'm a wholehearted statist in favor of democracy. I do think there are lessons to be learned from Marx's examination of the capitalist economic model, and believe we could have a better hybrid system with workers' cooperatives to compete with capitalist enterprise. I'm just telling the truth on this one, there cannot be a communist nation. It's a complete contradiction. Lenin completely understood the USSR couldn't possibly be both a state and communist, but admitted this, and called it communist anyway. And all of this is why if you read about 1800s communists, they're all referred to as anarchists. Still are, if you're talking to someone that understands communism. Authoritarianism comes in every flavor of Kool-Aid.
- ralusek 5y agoAuthoritarianism is possible with most types of government, but is necessary for communism. Most communists are well aware of the fact that an economic system with strict objectives requires a very powerful mechanism in order to accomplish this, and most of those understand that this mechanism is an authoritarian state, but there are obviously the delusional few that refer to the state by any other name (syndicates, guilds). China, however, is not communist. China is fascist. > Fascism: authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy
- coldtea 5y ago>Authoritarianism is possible with most types of government, but is necessary for communism. Only if the people aren't onboard. The whole idea of communism is with people being onboard (and running soviets, worker councils, etc). Some not being onboard is OK - communism is about majority rule, not what some person likes or dislikes. In that, it's like any other system. A modern democracy also doesn't care if somebody likes to sell heroin freely, or whether they'd rather have a King.
- ralusek 5y agoMajority rule is authoritarianism... If you're gay and can't marry who you want because the majority says so, it doesn't matter if the dictator or your peers told you so. What makes communism necessarily authoritarian, as compared to capitalism (which can be, but is not necessarily authoritarian), is that communism is a prescriptive ideology. It stipulates outcomes regarding distribution of resources, how hierarchies are manifested or not manifested, economic relationships, etc. Capitalism is an ideology of systems, unconcerned with outcomes. This is why communes can exist in capitalist countries, but private enterprises cannot exist in communist countries.
- kybernetikos 5y agoThere's always pragmatism though - it's possible to say that your end state involves no workers being alienated from their labour, but to allow it for some large number of years on the basis that it will help you get to a good version of the endstate quicker. A state that governs with a communist endstate in mind might still be regarded as communist, even if they use capitalist policies to get there.
- meh99 5y agoI don’t really see the inequality of representation and taxation in capitalism as any less authoritarian. If everything I do is being validated for value by management and bosses, and my buying power is managed by bankers who have inflationary powers to dilute my earnings, we’ve just made managed economy ephemeral. We’ve socially normalized grift and protection rackets. Some estimates suggest up to 30% of inmates are innocent. And when plenty are in there for marijuana, that’s a bit more petty than a billionaire disrupting an entire society. Rather than real prisons we let people die on the streets from preventable disease so we can say we didn’t force anyone into anything as if letting them rot is glass half full. It’s a shame the “I am educated and worldly” community hasn’t put much though into the depth to which relativity applies to human existence. If we’re going to intentionally avoid lifting people up at the cost of putting agency into propping up the already rich, well, the poor can never experience the alternative to form meta opinions. This bantering in traditional political memes is patronizing and ignorant af given our scientific understanding of reality.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoIf you don’t see a difference, but millions of others do, it might be worth steel manning the opposite of your conclusions. It’s a useful rhetorical exercise at least.
- meh99 5y agoMillions see sky wizards, should I? I get the difference. It doesn’t absolve our culture of ignoring it’s deficiencies. But look what happens at a university in 2008 when students simply sit on the ground. Is there a difference? Or have we just accepted our fate? I don’t think I’m the one that needs to take tour advice.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoThere might be a difference between belief in sky wizards and belief in taxation in capitalism being as authoritarian…