this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2025
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Socialism was never implemented in good faith. Oh, you're talking about the Soviet Union? Try to run a planned economy on a scale of a modern society. And tell me about equality and freedom where you gotta be in the party to have access to better stuff.
Or you are talking about China? Well, they are pragmatic and apparently learned. That's why China is not a planned economy, but state capitalism. Sadly, it's heavily authoritarian.
Capitalism and the idea of markets is not the problem. The problem is if it becomes an end in itself. So if you ask me, economically, the model that China is doing right now is right and obviously pretty successful. It is the rest I would rather not copy.
I neither want to live in a country run by oligarchs, nor by a self-serving elite of authoritarian bureaucrats. The rotten form of capitalism is the neoliberal dystopia we see in the west right now, the rotten form of socialism is what the Soviet Union was by the end.
You want a socialist revolution? Good luck. But please think about how to prevent just shifting the wealth and power from one group of bad people to another over the course of a few decades.
yes it was. how do you think socialist countries went from pisspoor poorest in the planet to industrial powerhouses in just a few decades?
if you like the status quo fascism for whatever reason, why not say it in a less roundabout way? i mean why would you be punching left so fiercely in the face of it?
You want to see enemies, so you picture me like one.
Tell me one country that absolutely without doubt was able to improve the living standard and bring masses of people out of poverty, which is not China.
I am not a fanboy of China, but I respect that whatever they are doing in the last 30-40 years, because it works. Even through a biased Western lens it's hard to deny that they are extremely successful. But China does not count. They drifted away from pure socialism right after Mao was done. The legacy of Mao is not that great. Both Stalin and Mao mainly produced repressions and famines.
And where is the rest of the "socialist block" which is supposedly successful right now, and not an authoritarian corrupt backwater? I know what you'll say. The evil West has torpedoed everything everywhere. That's too convenient.
I read the Capital, did you?
Don't you dare telling me I hate the left.
I just dislike people who think they have found the ultimate answer and love their answer more than other people.
Economical and organizational structure is a tool to manage societies, not a fucking religion.
Cuba, USSR, Vietnam, etc. Socialism works.
China 100% counts as socialist. The Gang of Four diverged from Marxism-Leninism into ultraleft dogmatism. Ultraleftism is not "pure socialism," there is no such thing as "pure" socialism, capitalism, etc. The PRC under Mao had markets, private property, etc, as did the USSR. As a consequence, the modern CPC is course-corrected to a standard Marxist-Leninist outlook. Both Mao and Stalin are seen as 70% good by the modern CPC.
The claims of "authoritarianism" are the repression of capitalists.
Yes, I've read Capital, volume 1. I'm on volume 2 right now. More importantly, I've read a ton of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and far more Marxist authors, all who speak about Dialectical Materialism and socialism, how to bring about communism, and more, all of which you won't find in Capital. I'm skeptical that you've even read Volume 1, to be honest, your understanding of Marxism is incredibly poor. Using "I've read Capital" as an "I win the argument" tool is incredibly poor rhetoric, if you have a good argument, make it, don't appeal to your own authority.
Yes, political theory isn't a religion, you seem to think it is though.