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History will not be kind to the USA
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2026
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Replacing a violent country with the system that historically always led to military dictatorships does not sound like a recipe for success.
You don't need socialism, you need northern European style capitalism
This guy doesn't know what socialism is and is too scared of bogeymen to learn.
I've been! Met some lovely people. Saw some beautiful places. You should try leaving your home city just once in your sheltered closeted little life.
The world is not what Fox News is telling you it is.
Lmao, I am European. Wtf would I need to watch Fox news for?
Sorry bud but painting a stereotype is not really defending your position. Did CNN tell you that that was OK?
Well I figured you were either some dipshit from the flyover counties or, far more likely, an employee of a troll farm. I figured I'd give you the benefit of the doubt.
Oh yeah, all very good points. Maybe you can also call me a sexist fascist bigoted incel, that'll really show off your knowledge on the subject
I mean if you'd like? I'm not sure this comment is the checkmate you think it is.
You seem to expect people call you that a lot.
Eastern Europe hasn't been socialist for 3 decades. What you see is the devastation of capitalism and western imperialism plundering formerly functional states.
You could argue that they've never been socialist, because like every other attempt it just devolved into military dictatorships. The effects of that attempt are still present today. Take any political or social map of Germany and you can still see where the old borders were
No, you cannot make that argument, because it isn't true. Socialist states have had the working classes in control of the state, and this is proven with hard evidence from the opening of the soviet archives confirming leftist documentation and reporting within the SU. As for the former GDR, the communists were purged in show trials by the west, which never genuinely de-Nazified. That's why there's a far-right reaction there.
Mate, even the majority of socialists disagree with this view, let alone someone who is critical of socialism.
The USSR was a dictatorship full of nepotism and corruption, where you could get jailed for the dumbest reasons, ranging from being gay to practicing karate. None of these rules were established by workers and all of them were created by the bureaucracy.
The workers were the people who ended the USSR
Incorrect, the overwhelming majority of socialists worldwide uphold socialism as it exists in the real world, unless you're talking purely about socialists in the west. The USSR was run by the working classes, and was more progressive than the west when it comes to queer rights and especially women's rights. They had an advanced form of democracy outlayed in Pat Sloan's Soviet Democracy.
It wasn't the workers who ended the USSR, but a coup, the ones who led this coup being the modern oligarchs in these post-socialist states. The majority wanted to preserve it:
Lemmy was made and is developed by communists, if you're anti-communist you probably aren't going to like it here.
Lithuania having a large nationalist movement and a far-right resurgance doesn't disqualift that the vast majority voted to stay within the USSR. This is further proven by the dramatic drop in people supportive of capitalism in Lithuania from 75% right after the dissolution to around 50% by 2009.
We're very internationalist, there's a large community in the global south. It's still dominated by European and Statesian users for now, but thankfully it's more diverse than that.
The last anything anyone needs is European anything. European capitalism brought the world the USA, two world wars, and imperialism. They're on a 80 year experiment of having a small amount of welfare but it has never been enough and that is about to end when they remilitarize
Colonialism was not capitalism, there's nothing capitalist about taking prisoners and stealing land for government charted monopolies.
Meanwhile northern Europe has the highest standard of living, healthcare quality, accessibility and life expectancy. And all of it is being paid for with the spoils of capitalism
You're seriously going to tell me that Victorian imperialism wasn't capitalism? That the rape of India wasn't capitalism? That the Belgian congo wasn't operated by capitalist investors? You're ahistorical and an idiot. You think the Algerian colonies weren't operated by European capitalists? Nazi Germany is a great example of European capitalism as well.
Your highest standard of living is based on capitalist exploitation of the entire world and the working class. Your sick, violent, white supremacist countries are about to flush it's social democracy directly down the toilet to go to war with Russia too. Guns or Butter.
You're delusional.
Talk with some actual capitalists, and they'll all tell you that their core values are pretty much the opposite of whatever you're describing here.
Capitalism is simply the most successful system in the world, so it's an easy target for edgy teens who want something to blame for their failures.
But please do tell me how I'm exploiting the world, or how I'm violent or racist. Maybe you can call me an fascist incel so the word salad has all the cool things kids say nowadays
Brazil follows the great northern European style of capitalism and this shit doesn't work if you don't exploit the global south.
Brazil? Their maximum tax bracket isn't even half of what I'm currently paying in taxes, and I'm not even in the highest bracket
The only word I have for you is dipshit. Fuck off.
I speak with liberals all the time, you're again confusing the values espoused by liberalism to justify capitalism with the actual material system as it exists in the real world. As for imperialism, it functions as follows:
-The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
-The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.
-The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.
-The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.
-The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.
-The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.
The global north, Europe included, uses this export of capital to super-exploit foreign labor for super-profits. It also engages in unequal exchange, where the global south is prevented from moving up the value chain in production, allowing the global north to charge monopoly prices for commodities produced in the same labor hours.
Y'know, I was expecting a word salad of being called an incel, instead this is just a word salad of calling everything a monopoly. Half of the things you point to here are governmental actions, not capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system, not an ideology, it doesn't control what the government should or shouldn't do. And none of it even relates to the topic at hand, which was colonialism.
And financial oligarchies are 100% just a hallucination, prettied up in fancy words so it sounds like you're making an argument. You do not need permission from an oligarchy to make financial transactions.
If the global north would stop trading with the global south, to "fix" this supposed exploitation, people like you would be the first to start crying about how an embargo on the south is preventing them from moving up the value chain in production. There is no logic here, just accusations. You have nothing to show but an attitude
This is the third time you say you expected to be called an incel.
95% of people who think the left just calls everybody a Nazi turn out to be Nazis.
You're incorrect on a few key factors.
The economic system is the base, but laws, culture, the state, etc is the superstructure that reinforces the base. The base is what determines the superstructure, and they work together.
Capitalists, those with capital, are those that control the state. This is because whoever controls the large firms and key industries, the principle aspects of the economy, controls the state via controlling production and distribution.
The fact that the global north is controlled by the wealthiest of finance capital doesn't mean it isn't a problem. Calling the fact that banks control Europe and the US Empire a "hallucination" is just cope.
If the global north stopped trading with the global south, we'd collapse overnight, because the bulk of our consumption rests on value created by the global south stolen by us. The way for the global south to escape underdevelopment and overexploitation is to form alliances like the Sahel States, partnering with countries like the PRC that don't practice imperialism or unequal exchange, and engage in mutual development and cooperation along socialist lines.
Read How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney, and maybe toss in Super-Imperialism: The Origins and Nature of US World Dominance by Michael Hudson and Imperialism, the Current Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin.
Dude's on another planet xD
wtf 💀
Colonialism was absolutely an aspect of capitalism. You are correct that these high standards of living are paid for by capitalism, just that it's stolen value from the labor of the global south through imperialism, not through European labor.
Private property and freedom of association are core aspects of capitalism, colonialism did none of those things. Capitalism didn't arrive in the colonies until the colonists left.
You're confusing values espoused by liberalism with the consequences of economies dominated by private property. Colonialism was driven by capitalism, and justified by liberalism. Further, I am talking about ongoing imperialism, not just colonialism.
Slaves were considered private property in the USAmerica, right?
Was USAmerica a colony during their civil war?
The US Empire is still a settler-colony, to be clear.
Private property alone doesn't make capitalism, by that logic the ancient civilzations of egypt and sumer would already be capitalist. Capitalism is a collection of ideas, from the right to own private property to freedom of association, none of which is compatible with slavery.
Which is a big reason why the capitalist countries were the first to outlaw slavery.
Capitalism is a mode of production built on private ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. You're confusing the values espoused by liberals with the actual system itself as it exists in the real world, and as such are trying to pretend the same system that created the triangle trade is somehow anti-slavery. Capitalism caused and accelerated the slave trade when the colonizers needed agrarian labor for the land they were settling after genociding the natives.
Socialism has always led to working class control of the state. It's a recipe for the uplifting of the working classes. European style capitalism relies on imperialism to fund their safety nets, and as imperialism is weakening so too are the safety nets, which is why austerity politics and the far-right are on the rise in Europe.
Please, do tell me more about... let's say... the luxembourgish imperialism. Did they conquer any new nation recently?
Luxembourg's role within western imperialism is as a tax haven. It's a micronation that gets wealthy off of finance capital and being a glorified and legalized money laundering scheme.
So imperialism is... not taxing people? That's a very fluid take on it
No? Imperialism is as I already laid out for you, a process by which the global north, dominated by monopoly finance capital, exports capital to the global south to super-exploit foreign labor for super-profits. Luxembourg's role in that international system is as a foreign tax haven for the imperialists.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/imperialism
You know you can just look up these thing right?
Not taxing your citizens, is not imperialism. Luxembourg is not an imperialist country.
The process that you're describing is called free trade. As soon as the global south doesn't want to partake in this trade, they can stop. And Luxembourg wouldn't have anything to say on that matter.
Yes, I'm aware of britannica's over-simplified, useless, liberal definition. It reduces imperialism from a well-understood phenomenon with explainable causes, mechanics, and weaknesses, into a vague, vibes-based definition about "influence." All countries influence each other for their own gain, that doesn't make them imperialist.
Luxemburg is a tax haven for foreign capital, Walmart used it to dodge billions in taxes despite not having a real presence there. The citizens of Luxemburg benefit from foreign capitalists using it to dodge taxes, and in this way participate and benefit from imperialism. You're right about one thing, it is a consequence of free trade, which is why free trade is bad.
You think that by changing the name of a thing that you've changed its nature.