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this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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Do they need to be public property or do they need to be in the hands of those working there? I’d be more inclined towards the latter as in most cases the public as a whole is not going to have an informed or educated perspective on how specific jobs/roles/companies should behave.
Those are so similar to each other in comparison with capitalism that at this stage, we mostly use the same words to describe both.
No, they are not. The USSR and China (only in theory) had/has public ownership and it is quite different than the workers comtrooling their business.
When the public owns the means of production you open up the likelihood of the state directly oppressing the workers as happened in the USSR and China.
Well, in theory is pretty different from in practice
Yes and in practice public ownership isn't any different than private ownership you just have a different boot on your neck. In the case of public ownership stopping work means going against the state so there's even a greater incentive for oppression of the workers in some cases.
Nah. State ownership is only public ownership in a robust democracy. Oligarchical states aren't public.
And thus far no state pursuing Marxist principles as been anything other than totalitarian. There is no democracy among those that seek that path only claims of it as a goal.
Many nations have been successful in creating communism. White people just tend to forget about tribal societies when they're discussing politics.
First I said "state" not "nation" as those are in no way the same thing please do not substitute one for the other just because it is more expedient for your argument. It is a false equivalence as a state is a hierarchically organized polity and a nation need not have a polity at all.
No state has achieved communism in their attempt to pursue Marxust principles. They either decline into totalitarianism or abandon the pursuit of socialism and adopt a hybrid system like China has which comes with very mixed results for the working class.
Are you trying to argue that pre-agricultural societies were making an intentional choice to pursue the ideologies of Marx? That would be an odd position to take given most did not intentionally create an economic system nor would they have heard of Marx.
Finally, why are you bringing race into this at all? It isn't relevant and frankly it is inappropriate to highlight race when race isn't a factor in this.
You're right, of course. States are incompatible with communism. Marx said as much. Anarchism is the only way to a worker owned society.
Now, that. That is some bullshit. Tribespeople aren't savages. They think about politics and economics. You'd do well to read Kayanerenko;wa.
It is not inaccurate to suggest that most tribal societies that organized in a communist fashion did not read Marx as most tribes that did this did so before Marx existed or published anything.
All states oppress people, thats the point of a state. The goal of a socialist state is to oppress the bourgeois. While the workers of USSR and China did and do not have full control over means of production they had significantky more than we do
No, they did not. They had less. It turns out the totalitarian police state isn't a freeing experience. The only people who controlled the means of production were the bosses of the factories and the state that set the production schedules. The workers had no involvement. It was just the state lying to workers.
China has billionaires, an investor class and a stock market. There is no version of a modern Chinese state that hasn't completely abandoned any attempt at socialism in anything other than name only. I have no idea why anyone who would claim to back any form of leftism would support China since they obviously abandoned leftist principles. You average Chinese worker has fewer rights than most.
You have read nothing on chinese socialism and it shows. No investigation, no right to speak. Dengism was a pragmatic solution that prevented the collapse of Chinese socialism after the USSR was dissolved. They are using capitalist forces to grow their productive capacity while maintaining a proletarian state. Unlike the US, China is actually willing to punish and reign in its bourgeois and this can be seen by how much western media flips its shit when they do. There is genuinely so much to unpack about your comment that I could not possible tackle every claim made without writing a dissertation. I encourage you to read about socialism with chinese characteristics from communists who have put in the time to understand it and I encourage you to question why such severe state power may have been necessary especially in the early years of the USSR. You will not get a pure communist society while capitalist control the world.