Cowbee [he/him]

You can tell a take is a bit too good when you get both more upvotes and downvotes than the comment you reply to 😎

See, your problem is having bad takes. Sounds like a skill issue to me

Average Vaushite opinion

As anyone who recognizes my username would know, I would die immediately.

Different AES countries have different stances, the DPRK has always recognized Palestine and never Israel as an example. There’s a difference between just following AES and coming up with solutions to problems.

Sorry, can’t respond here fully, the moderators here censor comments with facts that don’t fit their anti-Marxist narrarive. I never denied that the Great Chinese Famine existed either, I pointed out that famine was common in China pre-Mao and during Mao there was one final famine, because of improvements in agriculture that happened under Mao. Blaming Mao for the immense poverty and brutality of existing conditions pre-Mao that he couldn’t possibly fix overnight is silly.

From the article I linked (and you haven’t read evidently despite my insistence):

"This argument is just silly as Mao inherited one of the poorest countries in the world. Mao came to power in 1949. Between 1900–1948 the country was engulfed in poverty and famine. Let us simply take a look at few. Here I will simply go off the Wikipedia page List of famines in China and if the body count is within a range I will take the middle of the range.

1907 Great Qing Famine — 25 million dead
1920–1921 North China famine — 0.5 million dead
1928–1930 Chinese famine — 3 million dead
1936–1937 famine — 5 million dead
1942–1943 famine — 2.5 million dead

Total = 36 million dead from famine between 1900–1948

If we divide this number by the amount of years, fourty-nine, we find that about 735,000 people died of famine per year on average before Mao even came to power."

Sort of. The PRC constantly takes the least confrontational stance possible. The correct Marxist take is the One State Solution, but the PRC will always take diplomacy over conflict.

Removed by mod

Thanks for linking the article. I like most of its points, but I don’t agree with this materialistic outlook that the economic development is the be-all and end-all solution to implementing “true” socialism.

There’s no such thing as “true socialism,” that’s part of the point of the article.

I believe that the root cause of all attempts of it failing so far is that humans are selfish assholes. Unless everyone bar none starts caring about their brethren and sistren at least as much as they care about themselves, the system can’t work. It’s simply too prone to being overtaken by bad faith actors who will inevitably abuse it for self serving purposes in the name of “socialism”.

Why do you think Socialism cares about thinfs like self-serving people?

Well maybe these two guys were a product of their time and had some not-so-good ideas, so not every word of theirs should be taken as a gospel.

Not as gospel, sure, but they have been proven correct.

Because the PRC is Socialist, and following Marxism.

It has a Socialist Market Economy. Marx and Engels repeatedly stated that Private Property cannot be abolished all at once in lower-stage Communism (which modern Marxists call Socialism). The economy of China is over 50% publicly owned and centrally planned, and there is a cooperative sector as well, meaning the Private Sector is a minority. On top of this, the Private Sector is still centrally planned.

The PRC employs a “birdcage model,” where competition in the markets eventually leads to monopolization into large syndicates, which the CPC then folds into the public sector steadily as it increases control by degree.

This is exactly why I linked you the article Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism. If you aren’t going to read Marx and Engels, and you aren’t going to study Historical Materialism, surely you can read a 20 minute article, right?

I’ll leave you with an excerpt from The Principles of Communism:

Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke?

No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society.

In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.

I bolded the section where Mao made an error in judgement and socialized the economy dramatically before the productive forces were developed enough.

That’s fine too!

No, it has not. Read Blackshirts and Reds, which I already linked. Communist movements served the Proletariat, not the Bourgeoisie. They also were by no means perfect “worker’s paradises.” Another good article is *Why Do Marxists Fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” if you can only spare 20 minutes and not read a whole book.

Y’all should focus instead on how socialism is incompatible with authoritarianism

You should read On Authority, Marx and Engels were constantly hounded as “authoritarian” for advocating for central planning.

It isn’t, it has a Socialist Market Economy. Marx and Engels repeatedly stated that Private Property cannot be abolished all at once in lower-stage Communism (which modern Marxists call Socialism). The economy of China is over 50% publicly owned and centrally planned, and there is a cooperative sector as well, meaning the Private Sector is a minority. On top of this, the Private Sector is still centrally planned.

The PRC employs a “birdcage model,” where competition in the markets eventually leads to monopolization into large syndicates, which the CPC then folds into the public sector steadily as it increases control by degree.

This is exactly why I linked you the article Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism. If you aren’t going to read Marx and Engels, and you aren’t going to study Historical Materialism, surely you can read a 20 minute article, right?

I’ll leave you with an excerpt from The Principles of Communism:

Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke?

No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society.

In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.

I bolded the section where Mao made an error in judgement and socialized the economy dramatically before the productive forces were developed enough.

I mean, depends on the day. I see tons of very socialist/leftist memes and content posted to world.

Leftist messaging is increasingly popular as Capitalism decays, but that doesn’t mean everyone has read theory. Lemmy.world is largely populated by liberals sympathetic to an idealistic form of Socialism that is pure fantasy, and denounce AES as a betratal of Socialism. Blackshirts and Reds has an entire chapter dedicated to western “left” anticommunism.

That being said, how many times do you need to circle jerk about socialism in the comments section on Lemmy?

I’m a Marxist-Leninist, I believe Marxism to be correct and try to get others to read theory. I get deep satisfaction whenever someone changes their mind or reads theory because of what I comment and post.

It’s not like anyone is actually going to do a proletariat revolution

On what grounds do you say this? Revolution is happening all around the world every few years in different states, as Capitalism decays more people become sympathetic to leftism. It will likely happen latest in Imperialist countries like the US, where living standards are inflated by hyper-exploitation of the Global South, and happens all the time in the Global South. Trends exist, systems aren’t static, Capitalism cannot last forever. That would be like believing water could be continuously heated and never boil.

At this point, it would just be Marxists “ackshually”-ing each other. I’m super bored of the lack of progress made in the discussions.

To be clear, most Marxists don’t need to “ackshually” each other, just towards liberals. Liberals often have the same misconceptions, that doesn’t mean they aren’t changing their minds individually.

Read Blackshirts and Reds, Socialism and Fascism are entirely incompatible and serve entirely different classes.

Maoists are ultraleftists, they generally deviate from Marxism to an idealist, rather than a materialist degree. I recommend checking out my comment responding to them.

The Vanguard concept isn’t flawed, it has real basis in materialist understanding. The idea that AES states have “devolved into Capitalism” is wrong as well (except the USSR into the various post-Socialist states). I recommend reading both Why do Marxists Fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” as well as Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism. The Dengist reforms were a reversion back towards Marxism, Mao had tried to achieve Communism through fiat without enough development of the productive forces and as such there were struggles and recessions.

Public Ownership and Central Planning works best on monopolist syndicates aquired by the State, that’s the entire reason why Marxists say Capitalism creates Socialism and that the bourgeoisie produces its own gravediggers first and foremost, this monopolization into internally planned syndicates makes Socialism a natural evolution on Capitalism, not a “better society” to force into existence.

Yep! You got it. Cuba, PRC, the USSR (pre-dissolution), Vietnam, Laos, etc.

Ultraleftism, found in the author’s Maoist leanings, is also dogmatic. I really like the articles Socalism Developed China, Not Capitalism as well as Why do Marxists Fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” as both help recontextualize AES from a materialist lens, specifically from the frame of Historical Materialism.

Blackshirts and Reds is a fantastic book, but the other 2 articles are 20 minutes each and Blackshirts and Reds is a full book.

Also, for what it’s worth, you have defended Zionism and believe Israel as a Settler-Colonial project should remain. Not exactly Marxist analysis, is this? Marxists hold firm that Israel cannot exist without its settler-colonialism, and isn’t a “nation,” hence the unwavering support for Palestinian National Liberation (especially the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine).

That’s fine, like I said! If someone wants an Anarchist server and doesn’t really want Marxists, dbzer0 is probably pretty comfy. Marxists tend to be on Lemmygrad.ml, Lemmy.ml, or Hexbear.net, which is also good. If someone wants to avoid Marxists, it’s better to be on a different instance, one that isn’t federated with them.

I wouldn’t describe it as “neutral,” it’s definitely Anarchist dominant and the admins and users tend to be anti-Marxist. That’s fine for its audience, but if someone wants a Marxist instance dbzer0 isn’t really it.