For context: The thread was about why people hate Hexbear and Lemmygrad instances
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One for communists is hardly any different [to one for nazis] as far as I’m concerned.
What do you expect to happen when you call a group of people “hardly any different [to nazis]”?
Communism does not advocate genocide any more than capitalism does. A capitalist society may commit genocide, a communist society may commit genocide. Neither are required to by their economic systems.
National socialism directly advocates for genocide.
It’s a ridiculous statement to compare communists to nazis and it’s not surprising that insulting communists like that will get you banned.
(Adding islamism to the comparison just makes the statement even more bizarre.)
Communism actively advocates genocide, it’s in a fucking Marx’s manifesto!
Obvious troll is obvious
Don’t troll then.
Where?
In a fucking manifesto. You blind or what?
It doesn’t, I’ve read it.
Read again.
Still no genocide.
Well, I guess you need to learn English language better.
They’re all fringe extremists groups.
Not everything outside the Overton Window is equally bad
No one has claimed they’re equally bad
You did, that’s why you got banned. Equating an ideology centered around improving everyone’s lives with an ideology centered around ethnic dominance and genocide is Nazi apologia, implying Nazis had people’s best interests at heart rather than pure malice.
Red scare
People hate hexbear and memmygrad because they are annoying.
I prefer shittygrad
[insert my very cool and funny meme sticker reaction here or whatever it’s called]
The comment might be controversial, but it shouldn’t be a bannable offense.
It sure is a Blockable one though.
So many people here trying to argue dictionary definitions and hide behind technicalities to make their little slice of authoritarianism better than that other slice of authoritarianism.
edit
Good lord, look at the replies to this post. Even being called out on the behavior, they still cant resist slapfighting over silly technicalities and dictionary definitions.
Communism isn’t inherently authoritarian, it holds no relation to authoritarianism or democracy, just like capitalism, and can exist within any political formation. Conflating communism with authoritarianism and capitalism with democracy will likely result in completely justified dictionary arguments, as this misconception is actually very important ideologically.
Associating communism with things like USSR or, in an even more cursed way, China and claiming communism is authoritarian is actively harmful, especially considering that neither of them ever had communism to begin with - they had socialism and claimed to be directed towards communism some time in the future.
Such shortcuts, like communism=authoritarianism=evil prevent you from actually familiarizing yourself with the concepts and puts you in a position when you oppose a strawman.
In order to collectively own everything, you must have a mechanism to decide the use of the means of production. Some things can be produced, but should not be, and leaving it up to local decision making will produce imbalances, as things that are easier or more fun to produce are produced more often than required.
You need a central nexus of control, and a person or group of people to be the final arbiter of decisions. Every time it’s been done in history, either the leaders of the revolution, or the people violent and powerful enough to stab them in the back and take control have landed in this position. Mysteriously, a small group of people controlling all production has only ever lead to tyranny.
Any communism that begins in revolution will devolve into tyranny, and there’s no words a dictionary can string together that will change that. Voluntary communes also seem to have problems, but it’s more often splintering, which is significantly less harmful.
In order to own anything at all, you need a mechanism to protect that property with violence. When you have to protect your own property with violence through hired guards, it’s feudalism. A necessary quality of capitalism is that the government protects your property with violence. Capitalism cannot exist without governments that defend property with violence or the threat of it.
All modern states are the final arbiters of decisions, just like the USSR and similar governments. If business contracts are signed in America, it’s the governments that force people to follow them. If you have a property dispute, the government decides who wins through laws. The government ensures that individual rights are protected through violence, from basic rights like the right to life, to the right to have private property. Laws are backed up by violence, as laws only matter when enforced.
The issue with attempts to establish communism in the past is that their democratic mechanism either failed, or never existed to begin with. When democratic workers councils disagreed with what Stalin wanted, he just ignored them. What could they do about it? When member states of the Soviet Union got upset with federal decisions, tanks were sent in to silence any dissent. These states enforced systems that centralized power and allowed small groups, or even a single person to make unilateral decisions and never have their power challenged.
The problem is that the orthodox MLs you find on lemmy do un ironically defend autocracy in the USSR and China, dismissing criticism of these states as western propaganda.
Trust me, id love a leftist space on the internet which doesn’t make folk heroes out of tyrants. Lemmy is not that place.
Context matters in this discussion.
The moderators of the lemmy instance OP got banned from have Russian and Chinese iconography in their profiles - its explicitly authoritarian and arguably communist in name only in order to attract naive idealists who otherwise would be against authoritarianism.
Yes, exactly like that is what i was talking about.
Communism IS 100% authoritarian. Any ideology which puts social constructs above individual rights and freedoms is authoritarian, be it monarchy, fascism or communism.
Sorry, but the protection of rights requires that governments limit freedom. All societies and nations on earth do this. If given absolute freedom, some would kill and brutalize to gain power, forcing everyone who wants to avoid this to band together and enforce rules that prevent that behavior. This is the biggest reason to rationally want a government. Even if you believe rights aren’t social constructs themselves, everyone knows they must be fought for.
Some tankies use the fact that governments inherently limit freedom to claim all governments are authoritarian, and therefore states like the PRC and the USSR are no better than liberal democracies. Your definition of authoritarianism supports the bullshit arguments tankies make.
Authoritarianism is a sliding scale, and not every limit on freedom is equivalent in contributing to a country being more authoritarian. Not having the freedom to kill others without consequence doesn’t make a country very authoritarian. Not having the freedom to publicly disagree with the government is a large factor in a state being authoritarian.
Communism and socialism do not necessitate having no freedom of speech or bodily autonomy. Communism, as defined by Marx, was the final stage socialism and anarchistic in nature.
The idea that communism is always authoritarian uses the idea of communism popularized by Marxist-Leninist movements, where dissent is highly controlled and limited. In reality, these regimes were socialist at best, calling themselves communists to claim that only their version of socialism would deliver Marx’s communism. Even to the authoritarian communists themselves, their states never achieved communism at any point.
You’re deluded. A proper liberal and democratic government doesn’t limit individual rights and freedoms, it only ensures that one’s rights end where rights of others start, resulting in an equilibrium for everyone.
Communism is authoritarian as it destroys individual rights and freedoms. If the ideology is not liberal in nature, it’s authoritarian. There’s no way around it.
Anarchists are the antithesis to authoritarians, not liberals, which doesn’t even mean they’re right. Besides, liberal democracy can support and enforce non government entities that take rights away from others. Even if you ignore slavery, where the liberal government arrests human beings if they try to gain freedom illegally, companies and owners can legally take away things necessary for life. Are the homeless, starving, and dirt poor really free in any meaningful way?
I personally think we can build on liberal democracy and the concept of private property, but serious adjustments need to be made to actually have a free society. We need, at the bare minimum, a welfare state that ensures everyone has the necessities, and access to the tools for self improvement. A society that doesn’t give people fair chances is not a free society.
I’m in favor of limiting the private accumulation of wealth and power, as people shouldn’t have the unilateral power wielded by the current ultra rich. This wouldn’t be communism, but it would maximize freedom and minimize class conflict. It would democratize economic power as much as possible. Another key change would be making it as easy as possible to check the power of those who wield violence. Police must have democratic accountability.
The most controversial thing I think we need is a federation for peace, who’s sole purpose is limiting and resolving interstate conflict. It would work to destroy or neutralize weapons of mass destruction, while also binding member states to enforce agreements made by the federation. It would be fundamentally decentralized, relying on the shared self interest of humanity to squash the selfish interests of humanity. The goal would be to prevent a single player from holding too many cards, even the federation itself. I don’t expect it to happen until people recognize that we need it, but it is a part of the puzzle that cannot be overlooked: the quest to ensure liberty must be global, as the mechanisms that take away the most liberty, mostly global capitalism and imperialism, have no borders.
Capitalism IS 100% authoritarian. Any ideology which puts profit margins above individual rights and freedoms is authoritarian, be it monarchy, fascism or capitalism. /s
Capitalism is not an ideology. Get back to school, kiddo.
How does Communism put social constructs above individual rights and freedoms, especially moreso than Capitalism?
Communism puts society above an individual.
It does not. It puts individuals over the bourgeoisie.
No.
Regardless, there is an important distinction.
You can argue all you like that political systems like communism and socialism may have lead to things like corruption, famine, wars and genocide but ultimately, the people who support those systems are seeking a fairer way to run society for all people and believe in it despite its history.
Head over to the far-right and the genocide is the point. They want “undesirables” to be killed, enslaved or completely repressed.
That’s the rub though. Many of us do support democratic socialism and social democracy, and are excluded, mocked, and banned because those forms of leftist ideology aren’t edgy enough.
I’ve tried to calmly explain the academic basis for democratic socialism on lemmy a number of times, and it inevitably results in me getting banned, mostly for being critical of the shockingly violent rhetoric favored my ML purists.
Then either make your comment and eat the downvotes or just don’t make the comment at all. You’re functionally complaining that a Facebook anti-vax group isn’t listening to your science.
Welcome to lemmy.
Its unavoidable considering the creator of lemmy is a nazi, and Lemmy ml is his personal instance.
The creators are tankies, not Nazis. Just as hateful and stupid, but not the same
I really don’t give a flying fuck what label it is or what their prefered uniform is, or what their favorite color is.
They’re all the same pieces of shit that want to ruin society, the world, and the species, for their own personal flavor of power.
This is fundamentally untrue.
The foundations of Nazism are purely focused on superiority of an interior group over exterior groups, and is centered on Conquest.
The foundations of Communism are centered on creating a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society, and abolishing hierarchy.
To say that Communists are equivalent to Nazis is Nazi apologia, as it implies they have everyone’s best interests at heart rather than pure malice.
yes yes, you are super upset and offended that your authoritarian team has been compared to another authoritarian team and want to argue on a dictionary technicality that your authoritarianism is better than theirs, so everyone ignores the actual history and practice of it that makes your teams mass slaughter just as bad as that other teams mass slaughter.
What team do you think I’m on?
When I say tankie, I don’t mean the average communist, I mean the type of idiots who worship the Soviet Union and the CCP and share their authoritarian views. They’re not communists, they’re authoritarians, and are no better than Neo-Nazis with a red/gold coat of paint.
Rightwingers don’t deserve oxygen.
Yeah no shit if you go to the communist instance and say communists are just as bad as nazis, you’re gonna get banned. You even admit to doing this specifically to get banned in your own comment.
Like even though I’m a socialist, I think the guys at lemmy.ml are a bunch of nutjob tankies, but banning people that come to their instance just to be a troll, insult people and purposefully try to get banned isn’t actually a bad thing.
I have never said communists are as bad as nazies. That would be ridiculous thing for me to say because I don’t think that. Nazies are legitimately insane and scary. Communists are just naive idealogues.
“One for Communists is hardly any different as far as I’m concerned.”
Bruh.
Account for the context. I’m talking about lemmy instances. I don’t think echo chambers of any kind are good because it radicalizes people and causes more harm than good In my view.
The context is that you grouped Communists with Nazis and Islamist extremists, and are arguing that all of their equally terrible views should be silenced. One of these things is far and away not like the others, and you know it.
Radicalization isn’t a bad thing. For example, the only logical solution to Climate Change is radical changes in societal structure, else we make the impending damages even worse.
Oh now I want them silenced too.
I’ll just leave this here
Thanks. I tried to post the original link but it just says “No posts.” Weird.
I got a 30 day ban on my .ml account for telling the little troll clowns on Hexbear that their childish meme responses were cringy and embarrassing.
I’m just not going to use that account anymore. Let them drive their own community away. There’s better instances.
Yup. They post gifs of pig shit, I say that’s not contributing to the conversation, and then I get a ban for it and they keep literally shitting up the thread.
Perhaps reddit would be more your jam?
It was. Too bad that place no longer exists.
I left lemm.ee after a mod told me not to use profanity.
It’s only 30 days, and you clearly know nothing about the nuances of communism to be fair.
30 days, how kind. Looks like you have something to do 12/23
Removed by mod
Lemmy overall is just different shades of red. Picking your instance just allows you to select pink vs. crimson.
lemmy.world mods will probably soon prove you right
EDIT: Users were quicker
It’s great. The more you get down voted the more you are proven to be right LOL
I’ve always found it odd why we don’t treat communism in the same vein as Nazism.
They’re both horrific ideologies that have led to the deaths of millions, but one is considered trendy.
They are radically different but authoritarians have corrupted both to be the same brute force regime. Communism shouldn’t have any specific single leader. It should be a conference of lots of little communities that participate together to make a state work. Sadly authoritarian ideals corrupt politics and make people want to rule that should never be leaders in the first place. Those leaders install their own friends who run the government into the ground - and it’s the government model that is to blame?
communism has somehow become synonymous with marxism-leninism, it’s very sad
“Marxism” 😀
“-Leninism” 😬
The .ml suffix isn’t helping
.ml = Mali.
I know it was the haunt of scammers when it was a free domain, but the government of Mali have reassigned management now so hopefully it will be less problematic as time goes on.
You are spot on on just about everything. The only thing I take issue with is saying that both werr corrupted by authoritarians. Fascism doesn’t exist without authoritarians. It’s just a shame that in America, especially as well as plenty of other places in the west, we are miseducated if we are educated at all on the subject.
I think there is a model of fascism that, when a dictator is removed from the scenario, looks like a corporate autocracy. Late stage capitalism, like a corporate Cyberpunk dystopia, is what happens when power isn’t seized by a megalomaniac. Unfortunately corporations are documented to gather the psychotically inclined within its upper echelons so any and all rulings are definitely going to be corrupted. At least communism allows voting for leaders and not private decisions without review like private enterprise.
That still ends up with local dictators and oligarchs. Yes, you’re not likely to end up with one global dictator etc. but ultimately would not be all that different in the long run. It’s exactly what they want a return to. Feudalism.
I think fascism, actual theoretical fascism (like untainted communism), removed from the realities of human psychology, would be a conglomeration of corporate states. The decision making is behind closed doors and leadership is decided by those on the inside of the corp, so still keeping the multilayered rights structure of fascism, but distinct in that those running the business would be able to also run the state without corporate influence.
Again, theoretical fascism is never going to happen because a business leader will steer the country to align their corporate interests instead of any public interest, but the idea is there. Fascism, uncorrupted by selfishness and greed, is a corporate state run by people who only answer to internal justice structures that are separate from public policy. But fascism is almost purpose built to give those who are least capable of thinking of others the ability to run those others’ lives so harmful people will always run things.
Communism at least has a chance at public discourse, like democracy but more open to compromise. It’s that compromise that is diametrically opposed to the unilateral decision making (without any public input) of fascism and authoritarians.
Communism scales horribly and practically begs for intolerant authoritarians to take over because the structure promotes compromise and compromising with intolerance ends up with intolerance. It works well when a small group voluntarily creates a small commune and everyone is on the same page. Everyone being able to see the overall community is pretty important for them to see how they fit in.
Capitalism also scales terribly, but when approached as a competition that requires regulation at least it can scale better because everyone can be watchful of bad actors. It still scales poorly because large companies can gain undo influence over government, but at least that influence tends to be about business and profit and not ethnic cleansing of the ‘wrong people’ that tends to be inherent to large scale communism. Yeah, that can also happen for profit with capitalism too, but again the acknowledgement of necessary regulations can mitigate that for the most part.
Everything tends to fall apart at a large enough scale though.
at least it can scale better because everyone can be watchful of bad actors.
I think you’re talking about democracy there, not capitalism?
If we look at a country with capitalism and not democracy (e.g UAE) I don’t think it has any protective effect on transparency.
If the model realized at scale repeatedly results in the same or similar effects, maybe there is something wrong with the model.
(Be those inherent mechanical flaws, flaws of ignoring parts of human nature, flaws of a model designed to work in a vacuum, or flaws of intricate and fragile necessary rules)
There’s no difference between them. That’s the thing. Two words for the same pile of shit.
and it’s the government model that is to blame?
Yes, because it leaves itself so prone to authoritarian takeover. As I’ve said before, this is a feature of communism, not a bug. A single, one-party “transitional” government is intended. You might as well just put up a sign that says “Dictator Wanted.” This is why there isn’t a single instance of communism on a nation-state scale that hasn’t quickly devolved into an authoritarian state. It’s not hard to understand this. Your government model has to account for the reality that people are going to disagree on things and faction out. Your model has to be able to manage that process. Communism insists everyone adhere to the same ideology, and those that don’t just get “re-educated.” It’s a horrible ideology, a horrible government model; naïve utopian fantasy at best, cynical authoritarian scheme at worst.
It’s not “considered trendy”, your understanding of communism – an economic system – is just conflated with authoritarianism – a political system. You can advocate for one without advocating for the other.
That said, capitalism also leads to the deaths of millions, but somehow that’s just an unquestionable fact of life.
I honestly don’t see how the idea of everyone getting an equal share is an extremist idea in the same vein as a racist ideology. I’m also unsure why you’re being downvoted for pointing out the obvious there.
Oh gee if only there was a single example of communists that actually acted on some of these purported principles instead of turning authoritarian the first chance they get
No, social democracies don’t count. They are what tankies SHOULD strive for, instead of sucking off… checks notes famous beacons of liberty Russia and China.
Perhaps it’s us greedy humans that’s the issue and the economic model only limits how completely we can fuck things up. Badly when it’s capitalism and really badly with communism.
capitalism also leads to the deaths of millions
Citation needed.
There’s a couple
Here’s a couple more.
20-50k due to homeless per year in just one capitalist country: https://nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Section-1-Toolkit.pdf
And then there’s the 250,000 expected per year and increasing due to climate change from capitalism wanting to not do anything to hurt profits of big oil : https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health
That’s me lazily grabbing things. I could do this all day but it’s depressing as fuck and it won’t stop you tongue fucking a corpo’s asshole so it seems pointless. Hope that helped!
Every single person who’s died of hunger
deleted by creator
See what you just wrote there. Every single person. That is so utterly ridiculous thing to say.
Wait until you read about communist famines.
Those were not on purpose. But were definitely made worse through the actions of dogmatic uneducated authoritarians much like capitalism. However, the fact that it happened to leninists involuntarily doesn’t justify capitalist doing it purposefully.
…also known as the Great Ukrainian Famine, was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians.
It wasn’t man-made lol. There were famines going on in the United States too. Dust bowl anyone? And I said they exacerbated it. You simply proved my own point for me and failed to state your case.
Let me give you some advice on debating or trying to discuss things. You should refrain from it.
People who have died trying to ration insulin, due to how in the US it’s made by for-profit corporations, diabetes care requires many other ridiculously expensive supplies, and the system is set up to require expensive doctor office visits and insurance to maintain a prescription, though type 1 diabetes is life-long. Plenty of other medical examples also.
That’s because the US healthcare system is garbage.
Look across Western Europe and they don’t have those issues, despite having a lot of private involvement in their healthcare.
No kidding. But it’s specifically capitalist garbage and it’s the for- profit companies involved in it top to bottom who strongly resist reforms. They invest millions and millions in lobbying and with propagandizing the populace anytime Congress starts seriously looking at changing anything. And I mean hell, we even have TV commercials for prescription drugs.
I’m sure it would be possible to make a capitalist, private, for profit healthcare system that isn’t abusive. For a while, maybe, since the nature of capitalism is to grow to extract as much from consumers as possible. In any event, that’s not what we have in the United States, and it does cause people to die.
Because one of them promoted racial superiority in its main book, while the other equally hated everyone? Do your research!
I completely understand where you are coming from, but you got to realize that that concept of communism has been warped by western propaganda and selective education.
People hungry for power will use what ever ideology appeals to the people to gain power. Look at Donald Trump. He was historically a Democrat from New York uninterested in politics. He ran as a Democrat the first time but made no headlines. He switched parties and started talking pro-christian rhetoric. He is very obvious no Christian.
You see it with “Protect the children” anti-abortion groups. Who have no interest in actually protecting children. Groups that target trans people with the same stance have no interest in actually protecting children. Groups who are say they want to stamp out pedophilia use it to target privacy laws.
And you have groups like Nazis and Lenist who used socialism and communism as a means to an end. Those groups used those movements to consolidate power and wealth to the 1%, and used violence against others as a way to ensure their continued control, they were neither communist or socialist in practice, only in their speech.
Well they’re considered just as fringe group by pretty much everyone else except for the people subscribing to it. Ofcourse they’ll soon rush to tell you how their idea of communism is different and will actually lead to utopia but just imagine a neo-nazi trying that same argument.
![[META] Never change, lemmy.ml](https://i.imgur.com/1pxAyiq.jpg){kind=link}