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  • [–] 18 points 2 weeks ago* (33 children)

    truth nuke

    My banned from .ml award

    Ew

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  • [–] 15 points 2 weeks ago* (29 children)

    I just want you to act normal. Actually talk to people like they're people and not props for your own self-aggrandizement. Seek to understand instead of making a big performance out of pre-emptively climbing up on the cross.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago* (27 children)

    You're doing the thing. You're opening the interaction pre-aggrieved and from a self-imposed prone position, awaiting the boot. Just relax, man. Most groups of people, anywhere in the world, are very chill if you don't approach them aggressively, or in this case passive-aggresively.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 weeks ago (25 children)

    your negative experiences here are from your deliberate prodding, cherrypicking and trolling by ignoring everything said to you.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago (23 children)

    fascist apologists like yourself have no place here. As usual, you lot are projecting a lot with the echo-chamber accusations. We can see your modlog dummy

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  • [–] 8 points 2 weeks ago (21 children)

    No, that's you altering reality in your mind. You did more than that.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (19 children)

    I already explained to you in that thread before you got banned. Which is what you then kept doing anyway. You are free to dig that up yourself. It's in your post history after all since you remember it oh so much

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (17 children)

    Pretty sure you didn’t. If I recall correctly it was circular and increasingly stretchy logic. In fact I don’t think you ever called me a fascist?

    It’s been a while; of course I don’t remember it β€œoh so much.”

    I did explain it, it was you prodding and prodding with repeated questions to hope I eventually would make a mistake arguing with you, for you to then go in and focus only on that mistake, ignoring everything else. That's what you lot do.

    And I am telling you to go back to that post yourself, you can go into your own post history, I do not care for it.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (15 children)

    No I am not, this is not the first time I see this behaviour.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (11 children)

    but not before you responded β€œLol. Have a good evening, man.”

    You are confusing me with another.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Nah, I like learning from socialists - they've got a wealth of great ideas.

    Unfortunately some communities of them are quite hostile, as I'm finding out via Lemmy.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (40 children)

    That's not quite correct. The west refers to socialist states run by Marxist-Leninist or similar parties as "communist," because those are the most geopolitically relevant representations of communism historically and presently. "Stalinism" isn't a thing, the ideology is called Marxism-Leninism and Stalin's contributions are minor compared to Marx and Lenin. The reason anarcho-communism isn't mentioned is because it doesn't exist anywhere that would require the news to report on it.

    Westerners see rising socialist success stories like China, and the news apparatus does its best to either discredit China or pin all of its successes purely on the marketized sector, rather than the cohesive socialist system that marketizes underdeveloped industry and socially owns the commanding heights of the economy. Their goal isn't to discredit the left by associating them with China, their goal is to dissuade the left from following its example.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 weeks ago* (37 children)

    Socialism is a transitional mode of production and distribution between capitalism and communism, characterized by social ownership as the principal aspect, ie rising and dominant, aspect of the economy and the working class as in control of the state. Both apply to China right now. The path of socialist construction in China utilizes a Marxist understanding of economics that sees the material basis of markets as decentralized and underdeveloped production, and the material basis of planned economy as highly developed and centralized production.

    China maintains social ownership of the commanding heights of the economy which have already reached monopoly scale, and employs controlled marketization to accelerate the development of underdeveloped industry to create the basis for social ownership through development. The CPC stands at the top, a working class party with a strong basis in Marxism-Leninism with Xi Jinping Thought, and uses this dominance of the state to restrict the capitalists from forming a politically unified and coherent class that could undermine this socialist construction and derail it.

    Here's a diagram of that "stages of socialism" part you mentioned:

    They are currently developing towards the intermediate stage, with plans to reach it by 2049. That means they are already socialist, just developing towards higher stages of socialism.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 weeks ago* (8 children)

    The average workers are seeing the effect of socialism. Within living memory, workers have gone from foot binding and mass famine on a regular basis to a modernized socialist society. Real wages dramatically improve year over year:

    Extreme poverty and homelessness have been eradicated. Home ownership is among the highest in the world, and every day technology is made to benefit the people over corporate profits.

    I think you have a caricature of China that exists in your head, but it isn't the China that exists in reality. Had China adhered to your moralist stance on socialism, that private property is a sin, then the average worker would not have the same levels of dramatic improvements year over year. This is dogmatism, not Marxism.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

    No, and I find the implication that I must be Chinese and/or paid to talk about socialism seriously to be a pointless rhetorical dodge at best, and chauvanist at worst. If you cannot meaningfully engage with the discussion and would rather insult users while adding nothing of value, then I don't see why you don't have a better use of your own time elsewhere.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    Are you under the impression that the firewall prevents outsiders from looking in? The biggest limiting factor is translation of Mandarin to English, and who chooses to perform that, not China trying to keep any information from leaking.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago

    why the de-facto world language isn’t widely available in such an amazing country

    have you considered why English is the "de-facto world language"? And therefor the context on "world"?

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  • [–] 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    "China is authoritarian because they speak Chinese instead of English," you can't make this shit up.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 weeks ago

    Don't forget what they said earlier

    I’m gonna just drop the truth nuke here so that I can get closer to my β€œbanned from .ml award” quicker:

    As usual, people with a lot of hate towards .ml reveal themselves to be chauvinistic and racist. EVERY TIME. Probably going to make a stink over on yet another .world feudposting about .ml and crying about how much of a victim they are.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 weeks ago

    I can and do speak to people from China, but in any case the propagation of English translations depends almost entirely on how western organizations choose to publish them or not.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 weeks ago (24 children)
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  • [–] 14 points 2 weeks ago (21 children)

    How on earth is that connected to the eradication of extreme poverty in China?

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  • [–] 12 points 2 weeks ago* (18 children)

    Lol, so you think any evidence that conflicts with your presumptions about reality is just fake.

    Even the fucking World Bank acknowledges that this data is accurate. Are you claiming they're faking numbers to make China look good? What, is George Soros behind it? How far does your conspiracy theory go?

    Maybe you should try basing your beliefs on evidence instead of propaganda and ignorant assumptions.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago* (16 children)

    You asked someone earlier:

    How would I know you aren’t the one cherry picking?

    That's a great question. If we all just blindly believe whatever we feel is true, then there's no possible way to determine who's right and who's wrong. That's why it's important to ground your beliefs in evidence. Because that way, we can actually determine who's right and who's wrong.

    But there's clearly no point discussing anything with you, your views cannot be changed by evidence because they're not based on evidence. They're based solely on blind faith. They are fully unfalsifiable, and no matter what the world looks like in reality, there could never be any evidence that would change your mind. It's no different from arguing with a Flat-Earther.

    If you ever get tired of worshipping at the alter of anti-communist propaganda and decide to start basing your beliefs on evidence instead of faith, hmu and we can continue this discussion then.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 weeks ago* (14 children)

    Mhm. Right, the evidence totally exists, you just "don't feel like showing it right now." And my girlfriend lives in Canada, that's why you never see her, no you can't see any evidence she exists, I just don't feel like showing you right now. Or ever.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    We were discussing the eradication of absolute poverty, and went into what identified that and went into eradicating it. You return with a source on homelessness, which has the following to say:

    Depending on how one defines homelessness, China has either a very tiny homeless population or an extremely large one. Compared to other countries, there very few vagrants: people living on the streets of China's cities without means of support. But if one counts the people who migrated to cities without a legal permit (hukou), work as day laborers without job security or a company dormitory, and live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions on the edge of cities, there are nearly 300 million homeless.

    Nobody denies the existence of underdeveloped housing in China. Calling them "homeless," however, is a stretch. The article itself identifies extremely low rates of vagrancy, which is much higher in capitalist countries. The ongoing development process in China now focuses on increasing the quality of housing and the availability of housing. What is not in question is that China consistently focuses on improving the lives of those most vulnerable in society, which does not improve at the snap of a finger, but through long development processes that drive real results.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Weird, if they call "work as day laborers without job security or a company dormitory" homeless, then in USA (or Poland) there is suddenly at least a double digit of homelessness. Also last time when i checked, bourgeois media loved nomad workforce chasing trash jobs.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago

    Yep, it's all definition pervertry to dodge the central point that China is rapidly getting better for working people year over year. They see China as a static snapshot and focus on how we define their present conditions to obfuscate how their conditions are changing.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

    I'm not asking for a source about homelessness, I'm asking for a source that disproves the evidence I presented about the eradication of extreme poverty.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Well then you're wrong. Extreme poverty has a specific definition, which you can find in my earlier link.

    This is a big part of the problem. You look at China and judge it based on your standards of poverty, presumably coming from a country that was much wealthier historically. By looking only at the present, and only in absolute terms, you miss the direction that things have gone.

    There are huge differences in the scope of things that you might consider "extreme poverty." Someone who can't afford a washing machine is poor, and someone who can't afford their next meal is also poor, but taking people from the latter to the former is a massive improvement in their life, even though privileged people might look at both and just see "poor."

    This is why organizations like the World Bank use specific definitions for terms like "extreme poverty" rather than just going off vibes.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 weeks ago

    You were given a clear definition of a real program that addressed a well-defined deficiency in society, and are responding to it by saying you subjectively interpret the label differently. Earlier you were discussing it as though the numbers were hidden or fabricated, now you're saying you don't agree with how they defined absolute poverty. In either case, however, you have not discounted that there was a clearly massive program targeting objectively defined metrics to mass success. The question at hand isn't if China is a far-future utopia or a dystopia, but where or not the working classes are put at the forefront of society, which is expressed through objective programs and measures.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago* (2 children)

    Your claim was:

    Even if so, it’s pointless if the average worker can’t see the effect

    I'm showing you evidence that 800 million people did see the effect.

    Socialism is when people own means of production, not when govt does stuff.

    It doesn't matter if the cat is white or black, so long as it catches mice.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago

    You can define your terms however you like. Whatever you want to call the Chinese system, it lifted 800 million people out of extreme poverty in a generation, which is an incredible accomplishment. As the World Bank link says, that accounts for three quarters of all poverty allieviation in the world, in the same time frame. You can criticize other stuff it does but you can't deny it's accomplishments, outside of dogma and conspiracy theories.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 weeks ago* (6 children)

    Okay, so you think the capitalist owned media would like anarcho-communism if they only knew the difference? Or that they'd like general communism better than "stalinism" (a fictional anti-communist propaganda term, not something that has ever existed in the real world).

    Well, go on then, just try telling everyone about how great (anarcho)-communism is. But get in touch with some comrades first and let them know, so they can come to literally bail you out when state repression inevitably hits you hard.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    Everyone Marxist-Leninist knows Marxism-Leninism was synthesized by Stalin. The point being made that "Stalinism does not exist" is that Stalin's contributions to Marxism-Leninism are minor compared to the work of Marx and Lenin. Referring to the real ideology of Marxism-Leninism as "Stalinism" is meant to make the former seem scary by associating it with the popular bourgeois mythos surrounding the figure of Stalin himself, what Losurdo calls his "black legend."

    Let's break down Rationalwiki's explanation:

    Marxism-Leninism is the communist ideology created by Joseph Stalin, according to his own interpretation of Marxism and Leninism.

    This is correct. The implication here is that Stalin may have doctored Marxism and/or Leninism if we are being uncharitable or may have misinterpreted if we are being charitable, but the basic fact is that Marxism-Leninism is the synthesis of Marxism and Leninism as created by Stalin, with little input from himself in the matter comparatively.

    Marxism-Leninism advocates for a centrally planned economy

    This is basic Marxism, not an invention of Stalin.

    with a one-party socialist state

    This is basic Leninism, not an invention of Stalin.

    and brutal repression of anything deemed β€œbourgeois” or β€œcounter-revolutionary”,

    This is basic Marxism and basic Leninism, doctored in scary words. From the time of Marx it was understood that the proletariat must use its own dictatorship against the bourgeoisie and their collaborators to cement the gains of socialism and eradicate class society, as is their historical role. This is not an invention of Stalin.

    which, for virtually all Marxist-Leninist leaders, includes anyone or anything they don’t like.

    This is nonsense, and notably not backed up at all by example but instead relies on the gut reaction of anti-communism in the reader to fill in the blanks with their own imagination. It's intellectual dishonesty, and relies on that same black legend from before.

    Wikipedia at least tries to pretend "Stalinism" refers to the actual policies of Stalin during his era of leadership, which I can at least accept, but it also similarly doctors it up in scary words like "totalitarian," without identifying anything about that.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 weeks ago*

    Since "Totalitarianism" is a word with deeply emotional baggage, let's see how Wikipedia defines it, and measure it up against Marxism-Leninism and "Stalinism."

    Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that completely controls the public sphere and the private sphere of society. It is characterized by its prohibition of opposing political parties and its extreme suppression of opposition to the state. In the field of political science, totalitarianism is the extreme form of authoritarianism, where in all political power is held by a dictator. This figure controls the national politics and peoples of the nation with continual propaganda campaigns that are broadcast by state-controlled and state-aligned private mass communications media.[4]

    In short, any socialist system that has a unitary form of government, no matter how democratic, is "totalitarian." The additional baggage of propaganda and the use of the word "dictator" are also there to beef this up in scary terms, but at face value any socialist system with a unitary form of government would be totalitarian by this. We will investigate the term dictator later, for now let's continue:

    Two versions of the World War II U.S. propaganda poster "Your Lot in a Totalitarian State" depicting a process of compulsory sham election which took place in totalitarian states, the flags of which – Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy[a] and the Soviet Union – are presented below. In the version on the right, produced after Operation Barbarossa, the flag of the Soviet Union (Allied member) is replaced with that of the Empire of Japan[b] (Axis member), which is not always regarded as totalitarian by Western scholars.[1] In regards to the USSR, the label has also received some criticism.[2][3]

    Interesting! Wikipedia even acknowledges that labeling the USSR as "totalitarian" is criticized! Let's continue a bit further, for the final paragraphs:

    A totalitarian government uses ideology to control most aspects of human life, such as the political economy of the country, the system of education, the arts and sciences, and the private morality of its citizens.[5] In the exercise of power, the difference between a totalitarian government and an authoritarian government is one of degree. Whereas totalitarianism features a charismatic dictator and a fixed worldview, authoritarianism only features a dictator who holds power for the sake of holding power. The authoritarian dictator is supported, either jointly or individually, by a military junta and by the socio-economic elites who are the ruling class of the country.[6]

    So, a socialist society with a unified ideology like Marxism-Leninism, and the working class as the rulers of society, is "totalitarian." It's doctored with scary language, but easily applies to any socialist state with a cohesive worldview. Continuing:

    The word totalitarian was first used in the early 1920s to describe the Italian Fascist government.[7][8] The term totalitarianism gained wider usage in politics of the interwar period; in the early years of the Cold War, it arose from comparison of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin to Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler as a theoretical concept of Western political science. The term achieved hegemony in explaining the nature of Fascist and Communist states, and later entered the Western historiography of Communism, the Soviet Union and the Russian Revolution; in the 21st century, it became applied to Islamist movements and their governments. The concept of totalitarianism has been challenged and criticized by some historians of Nazi Germany and Stalinist USSR. While the two states are defined as exemplary cases of totalitarianism, these historians argue that the main characteristics of the concept – total control over society, total mobilization of the masses, and a monolithic centralized character of the government – were never achieved by the dictatorships called totalitarian. To support this claim, the historians argue that the political structures of these states were disorganized and chaotic, and that despite the supposed external similarities between Nazism and Stalinism, their internal logic and structure were substantially different. The applicability of the concept to Islamism has also been criticized.[7][9][10]

    Now we get to the juice! The word "Totalitarianism" arose to equate the Nazis and the Communists as "twin evils" with "twin devils!" The word itself arose to discredit communism during the cold war! The truth is that the communists uplifted the working class and oppressed the bourgeoisie, while the Nazis uplifted the capitalist class and oppressed the working classes. Superficial similarities are used to equate the entire systems with foundational opposition! This is a part of Double Genocide Theory, a form of Holocaust trivialization. Onto how Wikipedia identifies dictators, to complete this foray:

    A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power. A dictatorship is defined as a state ruled by a dictator.[1][2] The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in times of emergency.[2] Like the terms "tyrant" and "autocrat", dictator came to be used almost exclusively as a non-titular term for oppressive rule.[3] In modern usage, the term dictator is generally used to describe a leader who holds or abuses an extraordinary amount of personal power.

    Considering that Wikipedia considers unitary socialist governments, no matter how democratic, to be "totalitarian," they therefore use this to determine the leaders must be "dictators," no matter the democratic process of selection. Moving on:

    20th-century leaders typically described as dictators (from left to right and top to bottom): Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union; Adolf Hitler of Germany; Augusto Pinochet of Chile; Mao Zedong of China; Benito Mussolini of Italy; and Kim Il Sung of North Korea

    If it wasn't obvious before, we again return to the "twin evils, twin devils" comparisons meant to directly equate fascism with communism! It cannot be more clear, this is an attempt to equate any existing socialism with fascism. Continuing:

    Dictatorships are often characterised by some of the following: suspension of elections and civil liberties; proclamation of a state of emergency; rule by decree; repression of political opponents; not abiding by the procedures of the rule of law; and the existence of a cult of personality centered on the leader. Dictatorships are often one-party or dominant-party states.[4][5] A wide variety of leaders throughout history have been described as dictators.[6]

    More baggage and fearmongering onto the word. Given the careful, liberal construction of definitions, it's clear that the only purpose on the Wikipedia entry for "Stalinism" is to contribute to the blanket equating of communism with fascism as twin evils, and liberalism as synonymous with democracy, even though socialist societies with communist governments have been more democratic than liberal democracies, and liberal democracies have far more in common with fascism than fascism with communism.

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