xor @ xor @lemmy.blahaj.zone

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2 yr. ago

Have you noticed that almost every argument you have is based entirely on what other things you think communists think, as opposed to anything about what communism actually is?

Your entire ACAB argument is totally unrelated to both me and communism other than the fact that you've decided that's what communists think.

Your chain of reasoning was:

(1) Communists hate police (???)

(2) Communists only hate police because they don't work for them

(3) Police have power

(4) Power corrupts

=> (5) Communism is bad

1 & 2 are both just random bullshit you've decided is true about communists

3 is true

4 is true

5 is totally unrelated to 1, 2, 3 & 4

The problem with that is that power always corrupts, not matter how good its intentions

Well yes, that's kinda the entire concept of communism. A huge part of its goal to equitably distribute wealth is that it reduces the power imbalance caused by the huge difference in wealth in capitalist economies.

I think it's also worth considering the impact of different voting systems on this as well, which is hard to do in an experimental way.

The effect of, for example, first past the post's 2 party system is hard to know for sure, but almost certainly has a substantial impact on how political views transition over the long term.

The ACAB BS

Nah man, I never said that was my stance, and that's because it isn't my stance. You brought ACAB up, insisted it was my opinion, and then whined that I disagreed with it. You don't know me.

Violence

I never said that violence ends violence. I merely said that sometimes the result of violence is a better situation than without it. It's not a simple thing to evaluate, but I would absolutely say that women having the right to vote in the UK is worth the violence they committed, and, additionally, physical violence against them is hugely reduced as a result.

Violence is sometimes worth it, and deciding when that is the case is extremely difficult to quantify. But writing off an entire economic system because one proponent of it said sometimes it's worth it is beyond absurd.

universally agree that violence is acceptable in order to reach their goals

This is such a terrible reason. Firstly, it's based on your personal idea of what communists think - I dare say you don't know many communists based on this, most likely not a single one in person.

Unless you think that no violence is ever acceptable - I expect it's unlikely you think Ukraine should stop fighting and hope the Russian army just go home - then you also hold the stance that violence is acceptable in some circumstances.

The Gandhi quote

You've hit the nail on the head - Gandhi was totally committed to peace and would refuse to commit violence under any circumstances. But he was acutely aware of the fact that violence could be an effective tool against oppression.

I can't claim to be an expert on military strategy, so I wouldn't be willing to propose strategy.

But the ratio of civilian to military casualties is obscene, even for an urban warfare environment

That quote isn't saying "we should go start some violence for a bit of fun".

It's talking about the exact revolutions that were ongoing during that period (see the section on 1840s geopolitics), and noting that the ongoing revolutions give an opportunity for citizen centred political system - ie a democracy.

ACAB isn't some international stance the left takes. It's a reaction to the frequently racist, violent and corrupt policing specifically in the USA. And it certainly doesn't mean there should be no law enforcement whatsoever - you'd be extremely hard pressed to find anybody who would take that stance.

Violence always begets more violence, there is literally no exception

Counterexamples: the British suffragette movement (which was notably extraordinarily violent, despite its common modern image as a quiet, polite disagreement), the American civil war, the Swedish coup of 1809, the Ukrainian defensive resistance in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war.

Gandhi was a fantastic and principled man, and had an enormous impact. But, whether or not he liked it, violence was absolutely a part of the end of British colonial rule, and would have been even if every revolutionary was exclusively nonviolent, because the violence by the British was not conditional on violence by the Indians.

But all of this is separate to the key point - regardless of whether one considers it an effective method of revolution, violence isn't the aim of a communist system, and it's use is only considered acceptable in a scenario where that is not the current system, and when it would be the only possible method to overthrow that system.

Edit: as an aside, even Gandhi accepted that violence can be necessary:

Even though Gandhi considered non-violence to be "infinitely superior to violence", he preferred violence to cowardice. He added that he "would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor"

But the issue is that Israel is absolutely capable of executing this war while causing massively fewer civilian casualties, and their failure to do is intentional and deplorable.

And that's not even taking account of the fact that Netanyahu's government have encouraged the development of hamas for their own political means. This war didn't happen in a vacuum, and Israeli colonialism is a significant factor in causing this crisis.

Okay - I shall do so.

You are wrong.

If you're going to base your disdain for the entire concept on a single work by a single author, then it would help if you actually read the work itself, rather than deciding what it says based on, I can only assume, something someone you know said offhand that one time.

So as a starting point, here's the whole work. Why not do a quick search through for the word "violence" and see if he ever advocates for it (spoiler: he does not). https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/postgraduate/masters/modules/theoryfromthemargins/manifest.pdf

However, in his conclusion, he does say this of communists:

They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions

This is an interesting passage to interpret - the use of the word force in this passage is fairly vague, for example, overthrowing the status quo via legislation enforced by police would be considered "by force", regardless of whether the police use violence. This is because it is done not by allowing what Marx calls the bourgeoisie to decide to switch to communism, but by enforcing it through law.

Now, there's more to unpack here, so I'll break it into a couple of sections...

Revolution

Marx does use the word "revolution" a lot in his manifesto, however typically not in the meaning you're envisioning (ie an overthrowing of government) but instead the meaning a fundamental shift in distribution of power and wealth within a society.

Is violence ever acceptable?

As a thought experiment, imagine a country ruled by a purely evil autocrat. This theoretical autocrat abuses their power, harms innocent people on a whim and takes whatever they please from their citizens. There is no allowance for dissent, no democracy for the people to represent their interests.

Would it be acceptable for the people of this nation to use violence to remove this dictator from power? I think most people would probably say yes in this context.

So we have determined that in some scenarios, violence may be acceptable when it is the only possible way to overturn an oppressive system of government.

That's not to say that it's the only way any system can be changed, or that violence is acceptable when it can be avoided.

The consequences of violent revolution

While violent revolution will change the distribution of power, it also provides an chance for opportunists to abuse this power vacuum to consolidate it around themselves, under the guise of being part of that movement.

Good examples of this are, of course, Stalin in the USSR, and, as a non-communist example, Putin consolidating power in Russia during the USSR's collapse and its transition to oligarchic capitalism.

The geopolitics of 1840s Europe

Europe in the 1840s was not like it is today, especially in a political sense. The continent was made up almost entirely of absolutist monarchies, with no democratic systems to allow the voices of the citizens to be heard.

There was a wave of failed revolutions against the feudal systems under these monarchies across the continent, which, with few exceptions, were brutally crushed by the states with almost no change.

Understanding these circumstances, it is easier to understand why the idea of transitioning to an equal distribution of both political, and in communism's case, economic power through peaceful means would be considered not just difficult, but laughably impossible.

Many of the seeds of the modern democracies we enjoy today were planted during this period of turmoil, in part in response to Marx's manifesto.

Communism and revolution under modern democracy

Now we have the privilege of living under modern democracies across much of the world, we have an unprecedented opportunity to actually consider Marx's ideas for a different societal structure, and implement changes that would be for the benefit for all citizens through democratic systems.

But we need to actually have reasonable discussions about these ideas and their impact, and "communism=genocide" is not only wrong, but takes a hostile stance against the concept before even understanding what the ideas are.

Edit: wrong link

every time communism has been tried, it involved massive genocide

This argument is so frustrating, because it totally ignores the fact that the common thread, both for communist countries and capitalist countries, and both for intentional genocide and crises through incompetence, is the consolidation of power in a small set of individuals or group that prioritises their own self interest over the common good.

The big issue with "trying" communism is that it historically has only really occurred through violent revolution. The political instability in these situations gives a perfect opportunity for the seizing of power by exactly those kinds of people.

Never mind the fact that genocide is absolutely not limited to communist countries, and that genocide goes against the actual fundamental principles of a communist system, which is centred on equality.

Yes, the USSR committed genocide - so did Britain and America, and so are modern capitalist Russia and China right now.

There's loads of good reasons both for and against every economic system, communism included. But "communism=genocide lalalala" is just a cheap excuse to totally avoid considering the merits of a different economic system. Doing that denies yourself the opportunity to genuinely consider how a different economic approach, whether that's communism or just using concepts from the ideology, could improve the lives of citizens in a healthy democracy.

Thank you

Alrighty bud

Are you mad about it because you identify as auth-right and don't like the term tankie?

Or because you identify as a tankie and don't like thinking about the fact it's auth-right?

Unnecessarily aggressive, but yes that is what characteristics are? It also has a meaning of what that group actually is

Nice Latin, but not relevant here

Tankie is a slang term for autocratic communist

Autocracy is not a legitimate form of government

So autocratic propaganda is not just a "different political stance"

Autocracy is not a legitimate political system

But they can't extend it longer than the shortest ads, since then it'll affect users after they watch ads too, which kinda defeats the point

Oh an equally bad take lmao

What's SMT?

Well known far-left person, billionaire Elon Musk

Aye that checks out

Both of you are absolutely right - I think that the OP's emphasis on romantic relations is actually a symptom of the fact that an excessive amount of emphasis is put on forming romantic relationships over platonic ones

I recently got hit with "western pseudo-intellectual hipster that likes to dance around morals and authenticity"