For context: The thread was about why people hate Hexbear and Lemmygrad instances
One for communists is hardly any different [to one for nazis] as far as I'm concerned.
What do you expect to happen when you call a group of people "hardly any different [to nazis]"?
Communism does not advocate genocide any more than capitalism does. A capitalist society may commit genocide, a communist society may commit genocide. Neither are required to by their economic systems.
National socialism directly advocates for genocide.
It's a ridiculous statement to compare communists to nazis and it's not surprising that insulting communists like that will get you banned.
(Adding islamism to the comparison just makes the statement even more bizarre.)
Communism does not advocate genocide any more than capitalism does.
So "eat the rich" is just edgy humor or what?
Weird, because somehow, every time that every time communism has been tried, it involved massive genocide, though perhaps one could argue that the majority of it was the result of incompetency, because the majority of the victims starved to death as a result of disastrous agricultural policies.
The Holodomor in the Ukraine killed about 3.5-5 million people. The Great Leap Forward killed somewhere between 15-55 million. The Khmer Rouge killed about a million. And I'm not trying to make excuses for National Socialism here, but you have to admit that even when taking to low estimates, communism's death toll is far higher than that of the Nazis. OP is correct, they're all evil ideologies.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
I'm pretty sure "eat the rich" is not comparable to "kill 5 million Ukrainians."
And I'm also pretty sure 'rich person' is neither an ethnicity nor a nationality.
every time communism has been tried, it involved massive genocide
This argument is so frustrating, because it totally ignores the fact that the common thread, both for communist countries and capitalist countries, and both for intentional genocide and crises through incompetence, is the consolidation of power in a small set of individuals or group that prioritises their own self interest over the common good.
The big issue with "trying" communism is that it historically has only really occurred through violent revolution. The political instability in these situations gives a perfect opportunity for the seizing of power by exactly those kinds of people.
Never mind the fact that genocide is absolutely not limited to communist countries, and that genocide goes against the actual fundamental principles of a communist system, which is centred on equality.
Yes, the USSR committed genocide - so did Britain and America, and so are modern capitalist Russia and China right now.
There's loads of good reasons both for and against every economic system, communism included. But "communism=genocide lalalala" is just a cheap excuse to totally avoid considering the merits of a different economic system. Doing that denies yourself the opportunity to genuinely consider how a different economic approach, whether that's communism or just using concepts from the ideology, could improve the lives of citizens in a healthy democracy.
The big issue with "trying" communism is that it historically has only really occurred through violent revolution. The political instability in these situations gives a perfect opportunity for the seizing of power by exactly those kinds of people.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that violent revolution is exactly what Marx said was essential in order to bring about the communist utopia he envisioned. That's precisely why communism has such a bad rep among anyone but edgy teenagers and college students. Are you telling me Marx was wrong about this? If so, please elaborate.
Okay - I shall do so.
You are wrong.
If you're going to base your disdain for the entire concept on a single work by a single author, then it would help if you actually read the work itself, rather than deciding what it says based on, I can only assume, something someone you know said offhand that one time.
So as a starting point, here's the whole work. Why not do a quick search through for the word "violence" and see if he ever advocates for it (spoiler: he does not). https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/postgraduate/masters/modules/theoryfromthemargins/manifest.pdf
However, in his conclusion, he does say this of communists:
They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions
This is an interesting passage to interpret - the use of the word force in this passage is fairly vague, for example, overthrowing the status quo via legislation enforced by police would be considered "by force", regardless of whether the police use violence. This is because it is done not by allowing what Marx calls the bourgeoisie to decide to switch to communism, but by enforcing it through law.
Now, there's more to unpack here, so I'll break it into a couple of sections...
Marx does use the word "revolution" a lot in his manifesto, however typically not in the meaning you're envisioning (ie an overthrowing of government) but instead the meaning a fundamental shift in distribution of power and wealth within a society.
As a thought experiment, imagine a country ruled by a purely evil autocrat. This theoretical autocrat abuses their power, harms innocent people on a whim and takes whatever they please from their citizens. There is no allowance for dissent, no democracy for the people to represent their interests.
Would it be acceptable for the people of this nation to use violence to remove this dictator from power? I think most people would probably say yes in this context.
So we have determined that in some scenarios, violence may be acceptable when it is the only possible way to overturn an oppressive system of government.
That's not to say that it's the only way any system can be changed, or that violence is acceptable when it can be avoided.
While violent revolution will change the distribution of power, it also provides an chance for opportunists to abuse this power vacuum to consolidate it around themselves, under the guise of being part of that movement.
Good examples of this are, of course, Stalin in the USSR, and, as a non-communist example, Putin consolidating power in Russia during the USSR's collapse and its transition to oligarchic capitalism.
Europe in the 1840s was not like it is today, especially in a political sense. The continent was made up almost entirely of absolutist monarchies, with no democratic systems to allow the voices of the citizens to be heard.
There was a wave of failed revolutions against the feudal systems under these monarchies across the continent, which, with few exceptions, were brutally crushed by the states with almost no change.
Understanding these circumstances, it is easier to understand why the idea of transitioning to an equal distribution of both political, and in communism's case, economic power through peaceful means would be considered not just difficult, but laughably impossible.
Many of the seeds of the modern democracies we enjoy today were planted during this period of turmoil, in part in response to Marx's manifesto.
Now we have the privilege of living under modern democracies across much of the world, we have an unprecedented opportunity to actually consider Marx's ideas for a different societal structure, and implement changes that would be for the benefit for all citizens through democratic systems.
But we need to actually have reasonable discussions about these ideas and their impact, and "communism=genocide" is not only wrong, but takes a hostile stance against the concept before even understanding what the ideas are.
Edit: wrong link
Wait til you find out how many people were killed by capitalist governments
So “eat the rich” is just edgy humor or what?
Yes. Most people don't want to eat other people. I would expect the explicit cannibalism to clue you in to a level of irony there.
Weird, because somehow, every time that every time communism has been tried, it involved massive genocide, though perhaps one could argue that the majority of it was the result of incompetency, because the majority of the victims starved to death as a result of disastrous agricultural policies.
Genocide has to be at least a bit deliberate, and generally they just fucked up their economy bad enough agriculture was negatively effected. In the USSR's case at least, the starvation affected the republics pretty equally, too. As Ukrainians were starving so were Khazaks. For political reasons, some parties have tried to make it sound like a targeted ethnic thing, but it just wasn't, and it certainly wasn't on purpose.
but you have to admit that even when taking to low estimates, communism’s death toll is far higher than that of the Nazis. OP is correct, they’re all evil ideologies.
This is the part where the communists come out with capitalism's death toll. Dumb ideology, maybe, evil ideology no, at least not on it's own.
Edit: Also, I take issue with not counting all of WWII as part of the Nazi death count, since they very deliberately made it happen. Consider this was in the space of just a few years, vs. an entire human lifetime for the Soviets.
Every time capitalism has been tried, it also involved massive genocide.
Funny, but it turns out that every economic system invented by humans has massive genocide in its history.
Wild, its almost like the genocide was a power grab tactic, and not something inherent to these economic systems.
Rich people are not a race. So "genocide" doesn't really make sense there. "Eat the rich" does not mean "kill the rich", necessarily, either. A lot of people just use it as a metaphor for ending the massive wealth inequality through economic reform.
Yeah, it's not a fair comparison. You can say it's a dumb ideology but at the end of the day it's close cousins with big-L Liberalism, and often has been first to the social ideas we hold dear today.
They got banned because lemmy.ml is also a communist-run instance. The mods could have taken the high road and just replied, I guess, but that would have been extraordinary patience. So, they banned the person calling them a Nazi, and I don't think that was an unreasonable choice on their part.
So many people here trying to argue dictionary definitions and hide behind technicalities to make their little slice of authoritarianism better than that other slice of authoritarianism.
edit
Good lord, look at the replies to this post. Even being called out on the behavior, they still cant resist slapfighting over silly technicalities and dictionary definitions.
Communism isn't inherently authoritarian, it holds no relation to authoritarianism or democracy, just like capitalism, and can exist within any political formation. Conflating communism with authoritarianism and capitalism with democracy will likely result in completely justified dictionary arguments, as this misconception is actually very important ideologically.
Associating communism with things like USSR or, in an even more cursed way, China and claiming communism is authoritarian is actively harmful, especially considering that neither of them ever had communism to begin with - they had socialism and claimed to be directed towards communism some time in the future.
Such shortcuts, like communism=authoritarianism=evil prevent you from actually familiarizing yourself with the concepts and puts you in a position when you oppose a strawman.
In order to collectively own everything, you must have a mechanism to decide the use of the means of production. Some things can be produced, but should not be, and leaving it up to local decision making will produce imbalances, as things that are easier or more fun to produce are produced more often than required.
You need a central nexus of control, and a person or group of people to be the final arbiter of decisions. Every time it's been done in history, either the leaders of the revolution, or the people violent and powerful enough to stab them in the back and take control have landed in this position. Mysteriously, a small group of people controlling all production has only ever lead to tyranny.
Any communism that begins in revolution will devolve into tyranny, and there's no words a dictionary can string together that will change that. Voluntary communes also seem to have problems, but it's more often splintering, which is significantly less harmful.
In order to own anything at all, you need a mechanism to protect that property with violence. When you have to protect your own property with violence through hired guards, it's feudalism. A necessary quality of capitalism is that the government protects your property with violence. Capitalism cannot exist without governments that defend property with violence or the threat of it.
All modern states are the final arbiters of decisions, just like the USSR and similar governments. If business contracts are signed in America, it's the governments that force people to follow them. If you have a property dispute, the government decides who wins through laws. The government ensures that individual rights are protected through violence, from basic rights like the right to life, to the right to have private property. Laws are backed up by violence, as laws only matter when enforced.
The issue with attempts to establish communism in the past is that their democratic mechanism either failed, or never existed to begin with. When democratic workers councils disagreed with what Stalin wanted, he just ignored them. What could they do about it? When member states of the Soviet Union got upset with federal decisions, tanks were sent in to silence any dissent. These states enforced systems that centralized power and allowed small groups, or even a single person to make unilateral decisions and never have their power challenged.
Regardless, there is an important distinction.
You can argue all you like that political systems like communism and socialism may have lead to things like corruption, famine, wars and genocide but ultimately, the people who support those systems are seeking a fairer way to run society for all people and believe in it despite its history.
Head over to the far-right and the genocide is the point. They want "undesirables" to be killed, enslaved or completely repressed.
I left lemm.ee after a mod told me not to use profanity.
Hey! No throwing shade on lemm.ee in my thread!
Lemmy overall is just different shades of red. Picking your instance just allows you to select pink vs. crimson.
lemmy.world mods will probably soon prove you right
EDIT: Users were quicker
EDIT: Users were quicker
that is actually really funny
You compared communists to ethno-staters. There's extremist and there's radical.
Yeah no shit if you go to the communist instance and say communists are just as bad as nazis, you're gonna get banned. You even admit to doing this specifically to get banned in your own comment.
Like even though I'm a socialist, I think the guys at lemmy.ml are a bunch of nutjob tankies, but banning people that come to their instance just to be a troll, insult people and purposefully try to get banned isn't actually a bad thing.
It's only 30 days, and you clearly know nothing about the nuances of communism to be fair.
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