5 ms·

It's fascinating how the ideology of Marxism–Leninism (Communism) today is more popular than ever among young people in former capitalist heartlands like the US

by 0xDEF 3y ago

It's fascinating how the ideology of Marxism–Leninism (Communism) today is more popular than ever among young people in former capitalist heartlands like the US, Canada and UK. A simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare is all you need to satisfy 90% of people but the elites in the US and the UK refuse to provide that.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bugglebeetle 3y ago
Perhaps young people in the US, UK, and Canada understand that elites will only settle for “a simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare” with the explicit threat of Communism? Historically, that seems to have been the case.
- oriolid 3y ago
  I think the process goes something like this: Conservative parent/teacher/etc: "So you want free education and healthcare for everyone, are you some kind of communist or what?" Young person, after reading the philosophy textbook chapter about Marx and ignoring a lot of history: "I guess I am one then"
- int_19h 3y ago
  Why would young people from UK and Canada think that, given that they already have a European-style welfare state with universal healthcare? Canada actually pushes it further than most of Europe with their single-payer healthcare system that effectively prohibits private coverage for things covered by the public system. Canadians of all people also ought to remember how they got their system, which was by voting[1] for parties that supported it in elections. It had basically nothing to do with threat of communism. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Saskatchewan_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Saskatchewan_general_elec...
kfrzcode 3y ago
[flagged]
- diuddnbsb 3y ago
  communism is when no iPhone
  - kfrzcode 3y ago
    Well, not strictly speaking, but I think I get your drift
- nicoburns 3y ago
  Young people being naive is nothing new. And it's hardly surprising that young people are more aware of the atrocities that their own societies systems have wrought than those of a historical system that is no longer used. Of course, what we really need is the discourse to shift from "capitalism vs. communism", to recognise that both are extreme ideologies in their pure forms, and to start working out what a "best of both worlds" system looks like.
  - kfrzcode 3y ago
    How is capitalism an extreme ideology? Wouldn't something like a technocracy be the extreme of that spectrum?
- dubcanada 3y ago
  I don't think the ideology of communism is the issue, on paper it's a very sound ideal. The problem is when greed/other human attributes gets involved it stops working. As with any of them, it's all about the people and how they implement it. I don't think capitalism sounds good at all on paper, but has worked for quite a while, mostly due to some degree of working standards and unions. Remember most of these haven't been in use for longer than like 100 years. Before 1920 it was largely a mix of other religious/monarchy ideals.
  - 3y ago
beepbooptheory 3y ago
I think Euro-socialism is what most of those kids want, whether they are aware of putting it in those terms or not. The culture wars seem to dictate that there are huge contingents of tankies among the youth, but that doesn't really seem to be the case on the ground (i.e. not on Twitter). The DSA, the biggest, by far, left-org in the US appears, at least to me, to be pushing a platform indistinguishable from a Euro model.
- WC3w6pXxgGd 3y ago
  [dead]
- bequanna 3y ago
  European socialism isn't bad. But how does it work when you have such varied cultures like the US? Outside of some existential threat like war, it doesn't seem at all possible for everyone in the US to start rowing in the same direction.
  - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
    What about a "varied culture" prevents a nationalization of the health insurance industry? It's about presentation: If pitched as "We're offering better health insurance at a lower price than your existing plan" the vast majority of people would be on board. It would take a political miracle because of our thoroughly corrupted political system, but once it existed as an option, I have no doubt that trying to kill it would be political suicide. The problem is that our far right party is A-Ok with working class people going broke from healthcare costs, and poor people just dying, and our center-right party has pretty much adopted a platform of "We won't make things any worse".
  - teh64 3y ago
    Europe, of course, being a totally homogenous culture? This argument that America is too culturally diverse or too big for something to work has got to be the most uninformed, "the world consists of america and other", ever.
- int_19h 3y ago
diuddnbsb 3y ago
european welfare states are built off the back of exploitation it's a shame people like you never consider this
ActorNightly 3y ago
>its more popular than ever among young people Its only popular as an aesthetic. On both left and right, most politically inclined people don't have the reasoning skills to talk about politics effectively, nor would the actually enjoy living under their hypothetical best system of government. Most political discourse is used as a signal to show what kind of person you are in conversation. And generally, there is a trend of people who basically have nothing of value to demonstrate about themselves attaching their identity to politics as a way of giving their life purpose. >simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare You make it sound very simple. Its not. It sure would be nice to have if you could just will it into existence, but with realistic means, the amount of issues that you would have solve for, given the people doing the solving, its not guaranteed to turn out well. Id rather see EU adopt a more competitive business strategy and immigration policies to attract money and workers so that anyone wanting to benefit from the EU policies can immigrate easier.
- legitster 3y ago
  > Its only popular as an aesthetic This is a good way to put it. I have friends who got very mixed up with the El Chapo Trap House content. It has certainly scrambled their brains and made them insufferable - but for all of the worship of dictators and crude jokes about guillotining dentists they now make, none of them really care enough about local politics to actually start attending caucuses, let alone create militias.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  >> You make it sound very simple. Its not. It's clearly not that hard, if most of Europe can pull it off with dramatically less money than the US. Where's our American exceptionalism when it comes to catching up with any random European country? The issue in the US isn't a lack of means, it's a lack of will. Our political system is bought out by unimaginably rich interests, who's interest in the common welfare will only begin when it has fully eroded the foundation that they built their wealth on.
  - ActorNightly 3y ago
    >if most of Europe can pull it off with dramatically less money than the US. ... with a whole different set of legislature, political history, and even cultural history, all of which GREATLY matter for implementing something like healthcare. Simplifying this all down to "capitalism bad" is virtue signaling just like I talked about in my original post. Either talk about real solutions or don't talk about it all.
dubcanada 3y ago
Is it? I don't really see any surge of young communism ideologies... If anything I'd say it is exactly as popular as it's always been. I cannot speak to any but Canada, but the MOST people here do not want pure communism, they want Scandinavian/Nordic socialism. Our policies tend to venture into a weird combination of that and American policy copies, so we end up with a very weird mix.
- int_19h 3y ago
  I don't know if it's more popular in absolute terms, but it's more acceptable to be upfront about it, so it pops up in places that seemingly don't or shouldn't have that kind of affiliation. Here's an example: https://archive.fo/XVGA8 https://archive.fo/XVGA8
CrackerNews 3y ago
At this point it's about a desire for rational economic planning versus a capitalist system that they view as increasingly incapable of addressing broader 21st century problems such as climate change.
mempko 3y ago
I have a theory to explain this. Prior to Boomers, the public was very left wing. Unionization was high. Communist and Socialist parties had huge support. Until the 50s, a lot of towns had socialist mayors including Milwaukee. US had a top tax rate of 90%. But Boomers and Gen X are very conservative. Gen Z and A are again more left wing. My theory is Boomers and Gen X have had a huge amounts of lead poisoning from leaded gasoline. This shifted their politics to be more conservative. The 'culture war' we are fighting now is really a generational war. One with people who have lead poisoning and another without.

by 0xDEF 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bugglebeetle 3y ago

Perhaps young people in the US, UK, and Canada understand that elites will only settle for “a simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare” with the explicit threat of Communism? Historically, that seems to have been the case.

oriolid 3y ago
I think the process goes something like this: Conservative parent/teacher/etc: "So you want free education and healthcare for everyone, are you some kind of communist or what?" Young person, after reading the philosophy textbook chapter about Marx and ignoring a lot of history: "I guess I am one then"
int_19h 3y ago
Why would young people from UK and Canada think that, given that they already have a European-style welfare state with universal healthcare? Canada actually pushes it further than most of Europe with their single-payer healthcare system that effectively prohibits private coverage for things covered by the public system. Canadians of all people also ought to remember how they got their system, which was by voting[1] for parties that supported it in elections. It had basically nothing to do with threat of communism. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Saskatchewan_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Saskatchewan_general_elec...

kfrzcode 3y ago

[flagged]

diuddnbsb 3y ago
communism is when no iPhone
- kfrzcode 3y ago
  Well, not strictly speaking, but I think I get your drift
nicoburns 3y ago
Young people being naive is nothing new. And it's hardly surprising that young people are more aware of the atrocities that their own societies systems have wrought than those of a historical system that is no longer used. Of course, what we really need is the discourse to shift from "capitalism vs. communism", to recognise that both are extreme ideologies in their pure forms, and to start working out what a "best of both worlds" system looks like.
- kfrzcode 3y ago
  How is capitalism an extreme ideology? Wouldn't something like a technocracy be the extreme of that spectrum?
dubcanada 3y ago
I don't think the ideology of communism is the issue, on paper it's a very sound ideal. The problem is when greed/other human attributes gets involved it stops working. As with any of them, it's all about the people and how they implement it. I don't think capitalism sounds good at all on paper, but has worked for quite a while, mostly due to some degree of working standards and unions. Remember most of these haven't been in use for longer than like 100 years. Before 1920 it was largely a mix of other religious/monarchy ideals.
- 3y ago

beepbooptheory 3y ago

I think Euro-socialism is what most of those kids want, whether they are aware of putting it in those terms or not. The culture wars seem to dictate that there are huge contingents of tankies among the youth, but that doesn't really seem to be the case on the ground (i.e. not on Twitter). The DSA, the biggest, by far, left-org in the US appears, at least to me, to be pushing a platform indistinguishable from a Euro model.

WC3w6pXxgGd 3y ago
[dead]
bequanna 3y ago
European socialism isn't bad. But how does it work when you have such varied cultures like the US? Outside of some existential threat like war, it doesn't seem at all possible for everyone in the US to start rowing in the same direction.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  What about a "varied culture" prevents a nationalization of the health insurance industry? It's about presentation: If pitched as "We're offering better health insurance at a lower price than your existing plan" the vast majority of people would be on board. It would take a political miracle because of our thoroughly corrupted political system, but once it existed as an option, I have no doubt that trying to kill it would be political suicide. The problem is that our far right party is A-Ok with working class people going broke from healthcare costs, and poor people just dying, and our center-right party has pretty much adopted a platform of "We won't make things any worse".
- teh64 3y ago
  Europe, of course, being a totally homogenous culture? This argument that America is too culturally diverse or too big for something to work has got to be the most uninformed, "the world consists of america and other", ever.
int_19h 3y ago

diuddnbsb 3y ago

european welfare states are built off the back of exploitation it's a shame people like you never consider this

ActorNightly 3y ago

>its more popular than ever among young people Its only popular as an aesthetic. On both left and right, most politically inclined people don't have the reasoning skills to talk about politics effectively, nor would the actually enjoy living under their hypothetical best system of government. Most political discourse is used as a signal to show what kind of person you are in conversation. And generally, there is a trend of people who basically have nothing of value to demonstrate about themselves attaching their identity to politics as a way of giving their life purpose. >simple European-style welfare state with universal healthcare You make it sound very simple. Its not. It sure would be nice to have if you could just will it into existence, but with realistic means, the amount of issues that you would have solve for, given the people doing the solving, its not guaranteed to turn out well. Id rather see EU adopt a more competitive business strategy and immigration policies to attract money and workers so that anyone wanting to benefit from the EU policies can immigrate easier.

legitster 3y ago
> Its only popular as an aesthetic This is a good way to put it. I have friends who got very mixed up with the El Chapo Trap House content. It has certainly scrambled their brains and made them insufferable - but for all of the worship of dictators and crude jokes about guillotining dentists they now make, none of them really care enough about local politics to actually start attending caucuses, let alone create militias.
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
>> You make it sound very simple. Its not. It's clearly not that hard, if most of Europe can pull it off with dramatically less money than the US. Where's our American exceptionalism when it comes to catching up with any random European country? The issue in the US isn't a lack of means, it's a lack of will. Our political system is bought out by unimaginably rich interests, who's interest in the common welfare will only begin when it has fully eroded the foundation that they built their wealth on.
- ActorNightly 3y ago
  >if most of Europe can pull it off with dramatically less money than the US. ... with a whole different set of legislature, political history, and even cultural history, all of which GREATLY matter for implementing something like healthcare. Simplifying this all down to "capitalism bad" is virtue signaling just like I talked about in my original post. Either talk about real solutions or don't talk about it all.

dubcanada 3y ago

Is it? I don't really see any surge of young communism ideologies... If anything I'd say it is exactly as popular as it's always been. I cannot speak to any but Canada, but the MOST people here do not want pure communism, they want Scandinavian/Nordic socialism. Our policies tend to venture into a weird combination of that and American policy copies, so we end up with a very weird mix.

int_19h 3y ago
I don't know if it's more popular in absolute terms, but it's more acceptable to be upfront about it, so it pops up in places that seemingly don't or shouldn't have that kind of affiliation. Here's an example: https://archive.fo/XVGA8 https://archive.fo/XVGA8

CrackerNews 3y ago

At this point it's about a desire for rational economic planning versus a capitalist system that they view as increasingly incapable of addressing broader 21st century problems such as climate change.

mempko 3y ago

I have a theory to explain this. Prior to Boomers, the public was very left wing. Unionization was high. Communist and Socialist parties had huge support. Until the 50s, a lot of towns had socialist mayors including Milwaukee. US had a top tax rate of 90%. But Boomers and Gen X are very conservative. Gen Z and A are again more left wing. My theory is Boomers and Gen X have had a huge amounts of lead poisoning from leaded gasoline. This shifted their politics to be more conservative. The 'culture war' we are fighting now is really a generational war. One with people who have lead poisoning and another without.