I mean give the man (or not) credit, some of the most powerful and influential countries in the world is where democracy suffers terribly either at the hand of despotism or at the hand of capitalism (likely both).
these countries tend to dominate over other countries as they dominate over their own citizens. this should never be a goal. countries should be democratic between themselves as their citizens should be.
Yea but still it remains that democracy as it exists now is a major failure in some of the most influential countries, making democracy a failure for more than what %80 of the world (USA, Russia, India, China, and many more middle sized countries too)?
I dont think the meme is anti democratic per se, it is just anti democratic against a democracy of this type where usually people with a mentally ill levels of drive for power are at the top. It is making more fun of the fox than the sheep.
Well, it might be so. But I am just suspicious about tankies showing flaws of democracy since they use it to “show” the supposed supremacy of “communist”, authoritarian states as China.
You are conflating communism with authoritarianism as is commonly done on purpose or by accident to invalidate it. Anarchists are also often Communists and they oppose democracy for its oppressive properties as compared to consensus building and free association, that’s a critique of democracy from an even more libertarian perspective.
Socialists and Communists also believe in the democratization of the economy, so that a capitalist owner class doesn’t get to dictate how our labor and resources are allocated.
If you truly believe in freedom, you might be interested in anarcho-communism or socialism. Liberal democracy isn’t as free as you think.
Those states, according to theory, are meant to be a transition TO communism, but of course many things can go wrong in that process, and we’re kinda right back at the situation portrayed in the meme.
Despite my spat with the ML leftists in this thread, I see why the idea of a communist Vanguard state is appealing. I also see how a state which transforms into socialism or communism must be “authoritarian” in that it has to take away factories and land from those that keep it as capital, so that it can be shared. These states also had to contend with constant sabotage and aggression from the Liberal Democracies of the West who feared worker revolution coming to their own land.
Anarchists are a more idealistic bunch and generally strive to build parallel power structures and organizations of people and so try to construct a new order upwards. In practice it’s hard to imagine that method being able to replace nation states, especially with similar external sabotage on top of the existing internal challenges of running an equal society. Dictatorships and blind supporters of authoritarian leaders are hard to best in terms of efficiency.
Both approaches seek to accomplish communism, anarchists want to have their dessert right away, Marxist-Leninists believe the wolf will take care of them just as soon as he’s done eating his enemies.
There has never been a communist state, not as a cop-out, but because there is no state in communism by definition. These states claim that they’re transitional towards communism.
I also see how a state which transforms into socialism or communism must be “authoritarian” in that it has to take away factories and land from those that keep it as capital, so that it can be shared.
I think this will never work, or with a very small probability. Power simply corrupts and attracts a nasty kind of people. Personally, I believe that upwards, organic, evolutionary changes are more probable to bring us closer to the ideas of communism, as industrial evolution moved most of the world from feudalism into capitalism in a natural way.
I think that’s a fair take and perhaps indicates you’d lean anarchist-left. Direct action, mutual aid, and forming parallel power structures are the exact political and social activities that are core to that philosophy. Not exclusively so, but anarchists emphasize that kind of thing over activities like voting or, I guess, awaiting revolution.
I have mixed feelings myself, that kind of natural transformation won’t just be left alone to evolve, it’ll be actively resisted by powerful political and global forces, the United States and its allies would not allow it, for example. So in that sense a powerful political organization manifesting as a new revolutionary state does seem more likely to work to me, similar to how feudalism and monarchy resisted liberalism and had to be resisted through war.
Funny enough a big reason there’s animosity between leftists, especially between anarchists and Marxist-Leninists, is because anarchist experiments were sabotaged and anarchists were fought by “Communists” during the Spanish civil war even as they together fought against Fascists. You’d think a “communist vanguard state” with the goal of establishing communism would be supportive of autonomous anarchist collectives, but those leftists weren’t under the thumb of the Soviet Union. I think this pretty clearly demonstrated that the USSR wasn’t interested in anything but Empire.
I mean give the man (or not) credit, some of the most powerful and influential countries in the world is where democracy suffers terribly either at the hand of despotism or at the hand of capitalism (likely both).
these countries tend to dominate over other countries as they dominate over their own citizens. this should never be a goal. countries should be democratic between themselves as their citizens should be.
Yea but still it remains that democracy as it exists now is a major failure in some of the most influential countries, making democracy a failure for more than what %80 of the world (USA, Russia, India, China, and many more middle sized countries too)?
I dont think the meme is anti democratic per se, it is just anti democratic against a democracy of this type where usually people with a mentally ill levels of drive for power are at the top. It is making more fun of the fox than the sheep.
Well, it might be so. But I am just suspicious about tankies showing flaws of democracy since they use it to “show” the supposed supremacy of “communist”, authoritarian states as China.
You are conflating communism with authoritarianism as is commonly done on purpose or by accident to invalidate it. Anarchists are also often Communists and they oppose democracy for its oppressive properties as compared to consensus building and free association, that’s a critique of democracy from an even more libertarian perspective.
Socialists and Communists also believe in the democratization of the economy, so that a capitalist owner class doesn’t get to dictate how our labor and resources are allocated.
If you truly believe in freedom, you might be interested in anarcho-communism or socialism. Liberal democracy isn’t as free as you think.
You mean the idea of communism or actually existing “communist” countries, like China, USRR or North Korea?
Those states, according to theory, are meant to be a transition TO communism, but of course many things can go wrong in that process, and we’re kinda right back at the situation portrayed in the meme.
Despite my spat with the ML leftists in this thread, I see why the idea of a communist Vanguard state is appealing. I also see how a state which transforms into socialism or communism must be “authoritarian” in that it has to take away factories and land from those that keep it as capital, so that it can be shared. These states also had to contend with constant sabotage and aggression from the Liberal Democracies of the West who feared worker revolution coming to their own land.
Anarchists are a more idealistic bunch and generally strive to build parallel power structures and organizations of people and so try to construct a new order upwards. In practice it’s hard to imagine that method being able to replace nation states, especially with similar external sabotage on top of the existing internal challenges of running an equal society. Dictatorships and blind supporters of authoritarian leaders are hard to best in terms of efficiency.
Both approaches seek to accomplish communism, anarchists want to have their dessert right away, Marxist-Leninists believe the wolf will take care of them just as soon as he’s done eating his enemies.
There has never been a communist state, not as a cop-out, but because there is no state in communism by definition. These states claim that they’re transitional towards communism.
Thank you for a quite objective response.
I think this will never work, or with a very small probability. Power simply corrupts and attracts a nasty kind of people. Personally, I believe that upwards, organic, evolutionary changes are more probable to bring us closer to the ideas of communism, as industrial evolution moved most of the world from feudalism into capitalism in a natural way.
I think that’s a fair take and perhaps indicates you’d lean anarchist-left. Direct action, mutual aid, and forming parallel power structures are the exact political and social activities that are core to that philosophy. Not exclusively so, but anarchists emphasize that kind of thing over activities like voting or, I guess, awaiting revolution.
I have mixed feelings myself, that kind of natural transformation won’t just be left alone to evolve, it’ll be actively resisted by powerful political and global forces, the United States and its allies would not allow it, for example. So in that sense a powerful political organization manifesting as a new revolutionary state does seem more likely to work to me, similar to how feudalism and monarchy resisted liberalism and had to be resisted through war.
Funny enough a big reason there’s animosity between leftists, especially between anarchists and Marxist-Leninists, is because anarchist experiments were sabotaged and anarchists were fought by “Communists” during the Spanish civil war even as they together fought against Fascists. You’d think a “communist vanguard state” with the goal of establishing communism would be supportive of autonomous anarchist collectives, but those leftists weren’t under the thumb of the Soviet Union. I think this pretty clearly demonstrated that the USSR wasn’t interested in anything but Empire.
Mfw the anarcho-syndicalists throw me in a labor camp
Lol this maymay cracked me up good internet joke i hope u get many points