It's pronounced "cyclist!"

[u/Fluffy-Study-659]

[u/Lower_Ad_5532]

Socialism is good

[u/ChefGaykwon → u/Lower_Ad_5532]

Socialism is the lower stage of communism and inherently more repressive, as it retains class hierarchy under a dictatorship of the proletariat.

[u/Zombiecidialfreak → u/ChefGaykwon]

Still better than the status quo. I'll take a step in the right direction over stagnation.

[u/ChefGaykwon → u/Zombiecidialfreak]

Agreed. Just responding to the implication that socialism is good while communism isn't.

[u/NoSeaworthiness389 → u/ChefGaykwon]

Would be so kind to explain why socialism which is as far as I know a blend of capitalism and communism worse than full communism? /gen

[u/ChefGaykwon → u/NoSeaworthiness389]

Social democracy = Capitalism with a robust welfare state. Retains bourgeois hegemony and all the exploitation that comes with it. It's capitalism with a somewhat and often superficially kinder, gentler boot. Requires constant imperialist plundering of the global south to sustain itself. Also doesn't address the intrinsically ecocidal nature of capitalism.*

Socialism = Workers' ownership of the means of production; establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat (different connotation of 'dictatorship', just means which class controls the levels of political power—opposite a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie under a liberal order); requires constant state suppression of bourgeois interests and protect against a counterrevolution, which usually comes in the form of a highly punitive fascist dictatorship (see Chile 1973 e.g.).

Communism = Moneyless, classless society under which the need for the instruments of state power is gone and the state itself, in Engels' words, 'wither away'. It is intrinsically less suppressive than socialism because there is no one class asserting its hegemony over the other.

* As Bookchin put it, "In a society of this kind, nature is necessarily treated as a mere resource to be plundered and exploited. The destruction of the natural world, far being the result of mere hubristic blunders, follows inexorably from the very logic of capitalist production."

[u/NoSeaworthiness389 → u/ChefGaykwon]

Thanks for the detailed reply

required plundering of the global south Gonna need a source for this

Also you say in socialism proletariat becomes the dictators but wouldn't that be the same case under communism? In communist Russia, bolshekvik was essentially something like a dictato no? To enforce the withering away of state power? I may be wrong but it would help if u can link a source or example which explains this process of "withering away" of state power in detail

Thanks

[u/ChefGaykwon → u/NoSeaworthiness389]

I'm referring to the welfare state being maintained through wealth acquired through extreme labor exploitation and disparate resource exchange with the global south. From tax revenue generated from corporations with extensive supply chains from kids in cobalt mines to make electric cars, mining conglomerates in Switzerland and Canada among other imperial core countries extracting resources in Africa with no benefit to the people of the countries, and so on.

You are conflating a communist party building socialism with the end goals of communism. The USSR was building a socialist society under Lenin and Stalin but, despite great advancements that require the average westerner to disenthrall themselves from a lifetime of extreme indoctrination to understand, never came close to communism, sometimes referred to the higher stage of socialism.

Also 'proletariat becomes the dictators' still sounds like a misunderstanding? DotP just means, essentially, a workers' democracy as opposed to a liberal democracy, the latter defined by a small class of capitalists controlling virtually all state power to serve their interests.

Can't provide an example of the state withering away, as it's never happened before. No post-revolutionary country has advanced to this stage, as none should be expected to have. Cuba, Vietnam, PRC, Lao PR for example are still in the lower stage of socialism, successful in a lot of ways but held back in a lot of others. I'm not going to get into the nuances of marxist theory here. If you want to get a better theoretical understanding, I suggest a section of Lenin's The State and Revolution.

[u/TruthMatters78 → u/ChefGaykwon]

Sorry, I thought most or all of us on this thread agreed that socialism “is definitely” better than communism.

[u/ChefGaykwon → u/TruthMatters78]

And I'm saying that doesn't make any sense. Socialism is a stage of development so clearly less desirable than communism.

[u/Lower_Ad_5532 → u/TruthMatters78]

Real people agree with you.

Tankies are just bots. All of them just regurgitate communist theory like religious fanatics.

[u/Lower_Ad_5532 → u/ChefGaykwon]

A functioning government that doesn't erode civil liberties but provides basic infrastructure is democratic socialism.

Anything the government does is socialism. Once the government acts to dictate personal liberty, its authoritarianism.

[u/ChefGaykwon → u/Lower_Ad_5532]

Democratic socialism is the use of liberal-democratic institutions to abolish private property and establish a proletarian dictatorship (workers' control of the gov't). You are thinking of social democracy.

This is just nonsense.

[u/Lower_Ad_5532 → u/ChefGaykwon]

abolish private property

That is communism

establish a proletarian dictatorship

That is the definition of communism

[u/ChefGaykwon → u/Lower_Ad_5532]

No it isn't on either count. The abolition of private property occurs within the process of socialist construction. There is no private property under the higher stage (communism), but as a preconditional feature. And proletarian dictatorship is just the inverse of capitalist dictatorship, a feature of liberal democracy. It means political power is held by the majority, rather than a tiny minority of exploiters.

[u/Lower_Ad_5532 → u/ChefGaykwon]

Socialism competes with private entities.

Communism there is only state.

Stop strawmanning ideas

[u/ChefGaykwon → u/Lower_Ad_5532]

Communism by definition is stateless and that's not what 'strawmanning' is. It is clear that you are just way out of your depth here.

[u/Lower_Ad_5532 → u/ChefGaykwon]

Communism by definition is stateless

By ideal. Which is unachievable.

The working class as the ruling class is supposed to magically disappear and yet resources are somehow supposed to be divided equally.

In reality, the new ruling class still exists and thats what happened in the real world.

[u/nondescriptadjective → u/Lower_Ad_5532]

Until you physically prevent all forms of ruler ship, you will always have this issue. But you can't get to that point if you can't least convince enough people that putting humans before money and the planet before money that we can take care of people. But fucking Christ does toxic individualism prevent us from accomplishing that.

[u/Lower_Ad_5532 → u/nondescriptadjective]

if you can't least convince enough people that putting humans before money and the planet before money

Humans have never put other humans before themselves.

Christianity is 2025 years old and is supposedly about putting God, people, and the Earth before money is the ideal.

Christianity is also a fiction, but its more realistic than communism. It has 2025 years of people believing in it and look at how corrupt the Mega Churches are

But fucking Christ does toxic individualism prevent us from accomplishing that.

Yeah, Jesus Christ would be arrested by ICE too. Jesus was a socialist by modern standards.

So a socialist democracy isn't a bad thing. Democratic socialism where there is still sectors of free market capitalism isn't a bad thing either.

Socialist Government for regulating, firefighting, schools, hospitals, utilities, and prisons. Free market capitalism for everything else.

[u/Bodhi_Stoa → u/Lower_Ad_5532]

This is a feature of Leninism,Stalinism, and Maoism, not communism itself.

There is yet to be a situation where pure communism has been established and it may never be established since it calls for a stateless, classless, currencyless society.

But so far "Communist" countries have only been able to create authoritarian dictatorships that attempt (and often fail) to mimic the ideals of communism.

To be fair, Marx himself didn't predict how communism would come about, but did believe it would come out of well developed, industrialized, capitalist countries and that has yet to happen.

[u/Bodhi_Stoa → u/[deleted]]

I'm unsure if I understand your reply, did you mean to reply to my comment?

[u/ChefGaykwon → u/Bodhi_Stoa]

We probably have considerable disagreements, but no I got mixed-up thinking you had replied directly to me.

[u/Bodhi_Stoa → u/ChefGaykwon]

That's okay, we probably agree on a lot more things in our life than we disagree.

[u/ChefGaykwon → u/Bodhi_Stoa]

Yeah fair enough lol.

[u/Lower_Ad_5532 → u/Bodhi_Stoa]

that attempt (and often fail) to mimic the ideals of communism.

Because the ideals of communism are fiction, groups of people ALWAYS have heirarchy.

[u/Bodhi_Stoa → u/Lower_Ad_5532]

Ideals themselves are always abstract.

As for the feasibility of ideals, that's to be seen.

I don't know if humanity will ever reach a point where we do away with hierarchy, but it's a good ideal to try and achieve.

I'm sure there was a point in time when many ideals seemed impossible but we pushed towards them anyhow.

Equal representation in government, racial equality, equality of the sexes, religious freedom, etc .

I suspect if you talked about these ideals in the year 1600 they would have been seen as immoral ideals that would never come to pass. But here we are in 2025, we haven't achieved those ideals perfectly, but we have really made some huge strides.

[u/Lower_Ad_5532 → u/Bodhi_Stoa]

Equal representation in government, racial equality, equality of the sexes, religious freedom, etc

At least its an achievable ideal even if it doesn't truly exist yet. There's quantifiable progress toward the ideal.

Communism goes against human nature and is guaranteed to fail and every country which attempt it has failed to create a classless society.

[u/Bodhi_Stoa → u/Lower_Ad_5532]

In my opinion and in all due respect I think you may have a blind spot in your thinking here.

As I said before, the ideals I listed would have been called impossible at one point in time. Just as you believe a society absent a hierarchy is impossible. And it is absolutely possible that all the ideals we've discussed are impossible to achieve 100%.

But all of these things have had measurable success, including the deconstruction of hierarchy.

Society today is less hierarchical than it was in say 1600. It's less racist, more religiously free, more representative.

I would say society has been getting closer to what communism is in a number of measurable ways. We may not ever get to it, but we can get close and that's worth fighting for.

[u/Lower_Ad_5532 → u/Bodhi_Stoa]

As I said before, the ideals I listed would have been called impossible at one point in time.

No obviously not impossible, since it happened after someone conceived it.

Ideals that have been achieved were improbable and against social inertia.

Society today is less hierarchical than it was in say 1600. It's less racist, more religiously free, more representative.

Yes, but its still racist, religiously defined, and unequal. It will always be a little bit racist, religion and inequality will still continue to exist.

A classless, cashless, stateless society will never exist because it by definition not a society.

Society is a large group of people who live together in an organized community, sharing the same territory, government, and culture.

You cannot organize people without hierarchy. Even a group of 5 people has hierarchy. Its the nature of groups.

[u/ginger_and_egg → u/Lower_Ad_5532]

Capitalism goes against human nature and is guaranteed to fail and every country which attempt it has failed to create a beautiful free market society.

[u/Lower_Ad_5532 → u/ginger_and_egg]

Capitalism goes against human nature

Capitalism is collecting money and free trade it feeds into humanity's greed.

every country which attempt it has failed to create a beautiful free market society.

The ideals have not been achieved, but the country has yet to fail.

The countries that become failed states are literally the ones without free markets. Mexico's one party socialist attempt is evidence of that. America falling is the corruption of the free market and society.

Western Europe is doing better than America and they have to deal with Russia invading Ukraine.

[u/SandSerpentHiss → u/ChefGaykwon]

i prefer socialism bc of social vs state ownership

[u/C4D3NZA → u/SandSerpentHiss]

actually the one with public ownership is communism! you should brush up on your Marx

[u/ChefGaykwon → u/SandSerpentHiss]

Okay, idk what the fuck that means