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What? When did I say that? I didn't say that.
I think that the standard of living increased dramatically in both, as scientific advances that provide standard of living became more widely distributed worldwide, and I think their previous systems were pretty abysmal.
What.
the benefit of any central planning that accelerated their industrialization was dwarfed by the nightmare of having a single strong central government that can kill millions of its people at the drop of a hat or throw them in prison for literally just a single sentence when they spoke the wrong thing.
The US did the same thing when it was industrializing, they just weren't counted as citizens. Even at the peak of the USSR's incarcerations, they were lower in number both per capita and in total than the US Prison system.
I don't think that the fact that they came from feudalism and so therefore there were aspects of coming into the modern world and some form of modern government, that were good things, means that the model they chose was at all the right one, and I don't think that's a good argument for moving the US from its current state to a similar model.
Explain why you believe Capitalism would have been better. Secondly, I did not say the USSR is what the US should copy, I explained the issues with Capitalism and how Socialism solves them.
The specific examples I brought up were how it's worked in the only two huge countries like the US that have tried a fully communist economic model (and the central control of the country that necessarily seems like it goes along with it). What they got was gulags, cultural revolution, Tienanmen, great firewall of China, mass starvation in both countries (because of mismanagement, which is very very different from the earlier mass starvations that were caused by crop failures or war), modern Russia after the total unsustainability of the USSR system led to a total collapse, Uyghur re-education camps.
And yet the US is worse.
Yes, the US does lesser versions of all of the above that are still to a level that's horrifying. I think we should fix those things when the US does them. But I think treating those even worse outcomes as non-events, because in theory the system that produced them has some good features, is a mistake.
Explain why you believe the US did lesser versions of the above when they have been higher in total quantity and per Capita.
This is just vibes, lol.
…
0.7% of the US population is in jail or prison, which is a shockingly high percentage unworthy of a modern wealthy country, and a testament to the barbaric nature of our system.
The Gulag in 1950 housed 2.5 million people, after it received a huge influx of returning veterans whose only crime was having been exposed to the reality of the western world which the USSR didn’t want the population to be allowed to know about. They got sentences like 10 or 20 years. The total population of the USSR at the time was about 178 million, meaning the Gulag housed 1.4% of the population.
And this was a type of imprisonment which was sadistic beyond the wildest wet dreams of Joe Arpaio or Stephen Miller. Of the 18 million people who ever interacted with the Gulag during its full implementation lifetime, almost 10% died there, or shortly after their release.
Idk what’s going on at lemmy.ml to give you the picture of the world you have received, but they have done you a disservice. Idk dude. I tried.
Yes, so at the absolute peak of the Gulag system, right after an influx of imprisonment from returning POWs being imprisoned (which I never claimed to support), the US currently does not imprison as much. Wow, what a shocker!
The vast bulk of deaths in gulags came from starving POWs after the Nazis invaded Ukraine, the USSR's breadbasket. The reality is that just like American prisons, the USSR had vastly different conditions depending on severity of crime and location.
All this digging and still not a single point about why the atrocities that happened in the USSR are necessary for Socialism or supported by Socialism. It's clearly all vibes-based analysis from a lifetime of Anticommunist propaganda and an unwillingness to look at systems within the context of trajectory and as built upon from previous conditions.
Even at the peak of the USSR's incarcerations, they were lower in number both per capita and in total than the US Prison system.
This you?
I'm honestly not fishing for a gotcha. I'm fishing to talk some sense into you.
I think you're making statements without caring whether they're true (just basing them on whether they feel right to you), and shifting your definitions around, and refusing to clarify what you mean or the details of what you're advocating. IDK, man, if me trying to pin you down on what you mean or poke holes in what you're saying comes across as hostile, then I apologize. That's just kind of my way of speaking sometimes.
But overall, I think you have succumbed to this sort of groupthink that makes you think that things make sense when they don't or when there are significant flaws in them. Now you're falling back on accusing me of saying it has to play out like the USSR, when I said multiple times that it doesn't, and I guess implying that I don't like socialism when I listed some great socialist things already. I think you don't want to "lose" the conversation and are just kind of twisting things around to be able to accuse me of being wrong.
IDK man. Like I say, I tried. Good talk.
It's pretty clear by my wording that I was referring to when they were contemporaries, not the peak right after WWII to modern US, lol. Again, silliness.
I think you're making statements without caring whether they're true (just basing them on whether they feel right to you), and shifting your definitions around, and refusing to clarify what you mean or the details of what you're advocating.
Here's a mirror, lol. You haven't answered my questions and constantly duck and weave.
Here, I'll extend an olive branch. I can list several things, and you can tell me where you disagree.
Capitalism has the following flaws:
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Ownership of Capital by individuals results in a class conflict between Workers and Owners, resulting in a tumultuous society
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Production of commodities for profit rather than use results in products designed to make profits rather than fulfill uses, ie enshittification
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Capitalism cannot exist forever because of the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, which leads to Imperialism and eventually fascism and collapse
It's pretty clear by my wording that I was referring to when they were contemporaries, not the peak right after WWII to modern US, lol. Again, silliness.
Oh -- and I'm really trying not to get caught up in this extended back-and-forth over individual details because super fine details are not the point, but saying the USSR's incarcerations at their peak were lower than contemporary US imprisonment is even sillier. In 1940, the US had 0.2% of its people in prison, which is an actually-reasonable level for a decent country, and lower than the USSR's before-WW2-fucked-the-demographics level of 0.7% (1.5 million in prison out of 194 million people), which is equal to the US's peak of 0.7% and lower than its current level (I was wrong - it's dropped to 0.5% now, which is still of course way too much).
The skyrocketing of prison population from 0.2% to 0.7% happened pretty quickly, from 1980 to 2008, under the great neoliberal enfuckening of the country that was the end of the millennium. It's been going back down, slightly, since then.
I would like the system in the US to be back again more like the one that had the 0.2% that had lasted for 204 years up until that point, and work from there to make more justice at home and abroad. You could say that Reagan and Clinton are inevitable final stages of the system that no amount of safeguard can prevent, and there's no way to improve it within its parameters. I mean, maybe. But I still think it's reasonable to ask, okay even in that case what is the system we will do instead, that will prevent Reagan or Clinton from being replaced with a new Stalin (or, because of lukewarm support for the liberals from "pure" leftists, a Trump -- which is exactly how it happened in pre-Nazi Germany that led to Hitler) who will then make the days of "welfare to work" and 0.7% in prison look like wonderful happy days.
This is some spicy historical revisionism, haha. Liberals sided with the fascists in Nazi Germany, not the other way around.
Mind sharing some numbers?
This is some spicy historical revisionism, haha. Liberals sided with the fascists in Nazi Germany, not the other way around.
Hm? Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Here, look, I'll cite my super professional research.
- "The Social Democrats and Communists were bitterly divided and unable to formulate an effective solution: this gave the Nazis their opportunity"
- "By now the SA had 400,000 members and its running street battles with the SPD and Communist paramilitaries (who also fought each other)"
- "Under Comintern directives, the Communists maintained their policy of treating the Social Democrats as the main enemy, calling them 'social fascists', thereby splintering opposition to the Nazis."
- "Later, both the Social Democrats and the Communists accused each other of having facilitated Hitler's rise to power by their unwillingness to compromise."
Etc etc and so on. I don't think that there exists a far left in recognized US politics in the same way there was an official communist party in Germany. But I definitely see parallels between Lemmy leftists who don't want to support the Democrats against Trump, and German Communists who wanted to pick fights with the SPD (and, sure, vice versa) instead of uniting with them against Hitler.
The SPD, at least, united towards the end with the Center Party and the DVP to support Hindenburg for chancellor as a last attempt to stop Hitler, but by then it was sort of too late anyway; the main damage had already been done. Hindenburg's death hastened the process of Hitler taking over, but it was pretty much in the cards one way or another from 1932 on.
Are you talking about the SPD supporting Hindenburg as siding with the fascists? I think they only did that because the alternative would be Hitler. Or what do you mean?
Mind sharing some numbers?
Sure.
- Incarceration rates in the US showing the 0.2% or lower rate up until 1980, and then the skyrocket to 0.683% by 2000
- USSR population before and after the war
- Gulag population figures; 1.5 million in 1940 means 0.7% of the USSR's 194 million population, and 1.5-1.7 million dead out of 18 million total who passed through the system means almost 10% fatality rate for being imprisoned there
So the Social Democrats did side with the Nazis instead of leftists, got it.
Thanks for the numbers, again though the vast majority of deaths were due to mass starvation during WWII aftet Ukraine was invaded by the Nazis.
So the Social Democrats did side with the Nazis instead of leftists, got it.
What are you talking about?
Rather than joining up with the leftists, they sided with the fascists. This was after the SPD had sided with the Kaiser and had constantly made an enemy of the KPD.
By the way, you were mistaken about what happened after WWII, you may wish to read more.
You haven't answered my questions and constantly duck and weave.
Have I not answered questions? What haven't I answered? I'm happy to go back and address things if you feel like I evaded something.
Here, I'll extend an olive branch. I can list several things, and you can tell me where you disagree.
Capitalism has the following flaws:
Sure.
- Ownership of Capital by individuals results in a class conflict between Workers and Owners, resulting in a tumultuous society
Agree
- Production of commodities for profit rather than use results in products designed to make profits rather than fulfill uses, ie enshittification
Agree
- Capitalism cannot exist forever because of the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, which leads to Imperialism and eventually fascism and collapse
I mean, a building can't last forever because of its tendency to decay and fall apart, but then if you maintain it properly, it's fine, for long enough to be useful.
I think this is the core of our disagreement: I would agree about the tendency, but not the inevitability. Like I said, I think that particular elements (strong labor unions and a strong-in-practice democratic government) can constrain capitalism to where it functions well and gives a good world to the people connected to it, but doesn't take over and become a destructive force (as it is today to a large extent).
It sounds like you're saying that the flaws are unfixable and so capitalism has to be rejected in order to make a good system. Which, I mean maybe, but in my mind that's unproven.
It also sounds like you're saying that because of these flaws, we need to replace capitalism specifically with communism or socialism and asserting that it'll be better. Which again, I mean maybe, but it seems like you're being consistently evasive about the details of what that would mean (either through details or a historical example), which makes it conveniently easy to hold up the theory of how wonderful it could be, against the actual reality of how capitalism is in practice, and assert that of course it would work better than capitalism in practice, because capitalism has these problems.
You're on the right track, but haven't taken it to the logical conclusion. The Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall happens beause of competition, and the floor is subsistence. The less labor constitutes the overall value of commodities due to automation, the lower the profit. That's where Imperialism comes in, and as the global south also automates, rates of profit crumble. There's no scenario where Capitalism is maintained.
Socialism gets rid of that issue by abolishing competition and the profit motive. Rather than for exchange, goods are produced for use.
I feel like we're going in circles
Yes, I understand
My question is (1) why can't labor unions fight back against that tendency indefinitely, if given enough power to demand a reasonable share of the extra value of their labor (2) why is socialism guaranteed to get rid of that issue in practice; where has this been tried and worked out that way in reality to make sure it matches the theory
Unions can't fight back against competition being a thing. I think you're confusing RoP with wages.
The Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall has been absent from every Socialist country.
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