See that’s the thing: the fact that the west lies doesn’t mean that the east tells the truth. You are heavily skeptical of what the west has to say (good) but mostly uncritical of what any communist government has to say (bad).
Capitalist countries have done horrible things, but so have self-proclaimed communist countries
I have entire history books about how the west lies.
There is not a similar body of data about the loss of the east. Is it perfect? No. Do we have any reason to belive they are as bad or bad in the same kind of way as the people who oppose them? No.
General note: Most authors publishing critical material of the west in the (free speech) west don’t get silenced (edit: although professional blacklisting is all too common). Yes, I’m sure there are exceptions. You might not want to do that openly in China, Iran, or Russia these days, because the risks are well known/accepted. It definitely makes life harder for scholars and historians.
Do you have any evidence of China suppressing criticism? We know the western media openly brags about making up stories about the east.
I can find plenty of stories of publishing houses declining to publish material. That is effectively censorship but because it is done by a company we don’t care
Russia and Iran are more like the US than China so considering them as one unit is not helpful.
China seems to be far more about censorship and self-censorship. When public figures disappear from the public eye, they often reappear at some point. I hold great hopes for China’s future, and its potential as a successful & peaceful role model. Xi worries me a bit though.
They are not liberals. Here in America the anivaxx movement has kill tens of thousands to millions depending on how you do the math. In a better world stuff like that would have been censored. It only causes hardship and wastes resources. China does censor stuff like that. Now, does China have boomers that take that instinct too far? Probably. However they don’t have school shooters ever single day. They have 3x the population of us and that doesn’t happen there. So something is working there and something isn’t working here. A full rejection of their system is silly given how well it seems to work for most of them most of the time. Especially since, in every single case we can observe our system failing us most of the time.
How do you differentiate yourself from them as a socialist? What is your theory of power and how it relates to authority, revolutions, and the working class that causes you to make this separation between supporting non-western communist countries and not?
I never said that I don’t support communist countries. What I do not support are abuses of power by authoritarian leaders, even if they claim to be abusing their power in order to bring about a communist state.
Tankies accept most/all atrocities committed by so-called communist leaders with a “the ends justify the means” attitude that I do not share.
Have you never heard the phrase “the ends justify the means” before? It’s a pretty common phrase.
It means that any action, no matter how unethical or morally reprehensible, is acceptable as long as it is done to accomplish a goal that is deemed good.
This is the tankie attitude.
To reject this means that there are limitations on what actions are acceptable in pursuit of a goal. That there are some actions that are too repugnant to be justified.
That’s just thought-terminating. There’s no universal truth that ends do or do not justify means.
Is locking up a sex offender to prevent further victimization justifiable? Is taking bread from a store to feed a starving person justifiable? Is banning false advertisement justifiable? Is requiring licensure for medical practice justifiable? Those actions are all means that directly violate some conception of liberal human rights.
Additionally, there’s often not a clear delineation, in the real world, between means and ends. The real world is made up of complex networks of powers and interests competing against each other, regardless of what can or cannot be justified. We believe in advancing working class power, interests, and rights, which by definition necessitates undermining the power, interests, and rights of the ruling class and its enforcers/enablers. Within that framework we accept and perform criticisms of the methods used to progress those goals, but only inasmuch as those critiques can help to refine strategy and inform future liberatory movements. Otherwise it’s either carrying water for US interests or squabbling about the moral standing of dead people.
I don’t think you said anything meaningfully different from what I already said.
You do not consider the abhorrent unethical nature of certain actions as being a valid argument against taking those actions in the pursuit of establishing a communist society. The only criticism you’ll entertain is that certain actions may be ineffective or inefficient at accomplishing that goal.
I’m sorry, maybe I’m misunderstanding here. I think the delineation between authoritarian regimes and non-authoritarian governments is pretty clear - are you implying that all socialist and communist influenced governments are necessarily authoritarian?
I believe they are suggesting that, if “authoritarian” means anything, that every large state that has ever existed was “authoritarian,” though some diffuse the authority through things like enclosure of the commons combined with strict property laws or other, older methods like religious law.
No, I’m suggesting that authoritarian is a meaningless term unless defined specifically and was asking what theories of power and authority they had for making the delineation they are.
The derogatory term authoritarian is always leveled at socialist or communist countries, and never capitalist ones even though capitalist countries restrict rights for the majority of their populations by the very nature of the inherent power structure in capitalism. Even though communist countries usually enjoy far more decentralised authority, better voting rights, and higher political involvement in the populace, they are labeled as “authoritarian,” the implication being that they need “freedom” aka capitalism
What? The term authoritarian is thrown at non-communist/capitalist nations all the time. Syria, Nazi Germany, Libya, Franco’s Spain, Modern Russia, and a million other instances. Authoritarian is a clearly defined term and is in no way exclusively applied to communist nations in almost any circles. It also happens to have been applied to most “communist” countries because most of them have been authoritarian
Notice you didn’t name the United States which is just as authoritarian as modern Russia by any definition we choose (voting rights? participation in political process? allowed dissent? access to clean water? basic access to healthcare? food desserts? policies meant to keep people in poverty?). That’s my point. It’s an ethereal term unless properly defined.
We’ll have to set Libya aside since after given “freedom,” there are now literal slave traders everywhere.
I don’t particularly care as that wasn’t my point. My point was to disagree with your comment prior which stated that authoritarian as a term was mainly used as a truncheon against communist nations in order to increase support for capitalism, which it isn’t.
Yeah, but you doing that is unhelpful. It is confusing people because that is not a reasonable place to find criticism with the argument. Too much precision is not helpful in arguments and the CIA literally ran propaganda programs to get people to try to bog down any discussion of communism with meaningless minutiae. So, do better or something.
It’s not clearly defined at all; try to give a definition of authoritarianism that applies to all of the countries frequently described as authoritarian, but not to any of the ones that aren’t, and you’ll see how vague a term it is.
Countries frequently have authoritarian tendencies without being overwhelmingly described as an authoritarian nation. When a nations primary mode of function is in authoritarian action it ceases to be a country I would consider something anyone should aim to emulate, which is why most people have problems with tankies and their support of the USSR or the CCP. It is fine to point at those countries and say “hey for all of their faults they managed to do X pretty well” but an entirely different thing to look at them and say “if only they came out on top, the world would be a much better place today”.
I hope you can appreciate that you just said absolutely nothing concrete whatsoever.
Countries frequently have authoritarian tendencies without being overwhelmingly described as an authoritarian nation.
spoiler
When a nations primary mode of function is in authoritarian action it ceases to be a country I would consider something anyone should aim to emulate
ALL nations and ALL governments’ ‘primary mode of function’ is ‘authoritarian action’. You can’t run a water main without using ‘authoritarian action’ to secure right of way.
My guy, that’s an awful lot of assumptions to be making about the general mindset of multiple nations, each of which contains millions of people. Derogatory? I’m pretty sure that authoritarianism has a dictionary definition lol. “Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting.” From Wikipedia, just as a quick Google grab.
So do you think that, say, WW2 Italy wasn’t authoritarian? Or same-era Japan? Fascist nations are (by the above definition) authoritarian, so that actually includes tons of non-communist nations, both current and historical. Similarly, just because a nation is communist, does not make it magically except from having corrupt, authoritarian government. Id even say that America is well on its way to authoritarianism, and the right/neo-libs continue to salivate over the chance to completely fuck over the common person in exchange for a quick buck.
Genuinely, because I’m always looking to learn more; how does capitalism as an economic system inherently restrict rights? My understanding of the core premise is that it turns labor into a conceptual currency that we then use to acquire goods. It’s not, theoretically, at least, inherently oppressive. In practice, it’s been clearly a shit-show that causes more suffering than just about anything else on the planet.
As a side note; I’m deeply anti-capitalist, I’m also deeply anti-fascist and anti-authoritarian. I hate the idea that a human being is only worth the utility they provide, and I also hate the idea that oppression is a necessary consequence of an attempt to liberate the people of a nation from hyper-capitalist wagemongering. I’d like to think there’s a world where we can live and not oppress anyone, can genuinely engage in discourse and learn from each other without judgement.
If capitalism isn’t authoritarian why do we spend most of our federal budget on making sure people can’t leave the system?
Why does my boss get to decide my hair color?
Why is everything in my life dictated by the authority of money. How is living with that authoritarian boot on my neck freedom? I would be less free in a country like Cuba where I can marry who I want and leave my job without losing access to medicine?
When you say making sure people can’t leave the system, do you mean the military budget? Which is for sure super fucked- no doubt there. I think the driving force behind most warmongering is profit, as opposed to oppression for the sake of preventing dissent. Obviously CIA operations in foreign countries (and within the borders of the US) through time have shown we’re certainly willing to kill and ruin economies for control, however my (admittedly limited) understanding of a lot of those instances is that they are primarily built upon promises of extending geopolitical control as opposed to pursuing pure capital.
I think about the difference between the gulf war/Iraq/Afghanistan, which were for sure about extending control in an area rich with a resource that is incredibly valuable, and Korea and Vietnam -huge examples of attempting to avoid allowing political rivals to accumulate power globally.
Honestly I think workers rights is for sure an example of modern American policy being vastly (intentionally, in part) unequipped for modern capitalism. I don’t know if I think that it makes the core concepts of capitalism flawed- workers will need to work regardless of the economic system, and as long as people are working, there’s a power dynamic between workers and those who are utilizing their labor- the farmer will always need to sell their crops, and they can’t control if buyers won’t associate with them due to their hair color, or religious preferences, etc.
I don’t have an answer for that last bit- I think that’s where a just government that serves its people would be able to step in and provide for people who need it. I know countries are toying with Universal Basic Income, but ultimately it’s a complicated issue that doesn’t have an easy answer that I’m aware of.
I’m not sure how capitalism inherently prevents you from marrying who you’d like - could you elaborate on that? Do you mean things like marrying into debt? I definitely agree that the American healthcare system is oppressive - that’s absolutely a symptom of late-stage capitalism and the GLORY OF THE “INVISIBLE HAND” of the unregulated market. I think that’s one of those areas where a just government would be providing for its citizens.
What do we do with the economies once we controll them? We open the markets to our businesses and they raid the place. As our government is cpaitlaist all the decisions are based on making money. All those politicians that decide who to go to war with own stock in the companies that will profit. There is no difference between those drives.
Why did we not want rivals to gain power? Just vanity? No. The risk to future profits. When you look at wages and workers rights when the USSR fell the Capitalists had no competition. Wages were lowered everywhere as conditions would permit. After all, where else could people go,?
As to workers rights it is pretty simple. All that needs to be is that workers are given dignity. My boss can fire me and I might starve to death. If my survival wasn’t based on pleasing the most greedy people then I could make better decisions about how to use my time. So, just more money and safety. As communists we have a very specific idea we have about how to acomplish that.
Depending on what sate you live in you could very easily be fired for being queer. Because your ability to survive us based on money anything that riskes that is effectively not permitted by capitalism.
I think the dictionary definition is as I mentioned in a below comment, but the colloquial meaning has more to do with censorship by the government and restrictions on freedoms than go beyond those necessary for the health and welfare of other citizens.
So just based on a small snippet of reading about them, I think in general I have a favorable opinion of Allende’s policy. Part of it is hard because, while he did some things that I agree with 10000% like increasing access to education and making basics like bread accessible, I don’t have enough context to accurately judge my feelings on some of the other policies that he enacted, like land seizure. The other half of that is it’s hard to see the long-term effects of policies that were then invalidated by a CIA-led coup and Pinochet.
Do you know of any places where his policies actively (for the context of our previous conversation) would be considered “authoritarian”?
Well, since you like reading (which is cool and good!) there’s a neat book on Cybersyn, but I was actually going in a slightly different direction. I respect the project Allende lead, but it’s undeniable that it was a catastrophic failure. Allende is one of many examples of attempting a gentle touch and underestimating the sheer brutality that is the reality of capitalist encirclement for a socialist state.
Allende was conciliatory when he should have been firm and his lax approach to purging (i.e. basically not doing it) is what very directly laid the groundwork for the coup that was the death of him and many other Chileans under one of the most vicious dictators the world has ever seen.
Someone recently reposted a Michael Parenti quote that I think discusses elements of this well:
You can look at any existing socialist country— if you don’t want to call them socialist, call them whatever you want. Post capitalist— whatever, I don’t care. Call them camels or window shades, it doesn’t matter as long as we know the countries we’re talking about. If you look at any one of those countries, you can evaluate them in several ways.
One is comparing them to what they had before, and that to me is what’s very compelling. That’s what so compelling about Cuba, for instance. When I was in Cuba I was up in the Escambia, which is like the Appalachia of Cuba, very rugged mountains with people who are poor, or they were. And I said to this campesino, I said, “Do you like Fidel?” and he said “Si si, with all my soul.” I remember this gesture, with all our souls. I said “Why?” and he pointed to this clinic right up on the hill which we had visited. He said, “Look at that.” He said “Before the revolution, we never saw a doctor. If someone was seriously ill, it would take twenty people to carry that person, it’d go day and night. It would take two days to get to the hospital. First because it was far away and second because you couldn’t go straight, you couldn’t cross the latifundia lands, the boss would kill you. So, you had to go like this, and often when we got to the hospital, the person might be dead by the time we got there. Now we have this clinic up here with a full-time doctor. And today in Cuba when you become a doctor you got to spend two years out in the country, that’s your dedication to the people. And a dentist that comes one day a week. And for serious things, we’re not more than 20 minutes away from a larger hospital. That’s in the Escambia. So that’s freedom. We’re freer today, we have more life.”
And I talked to a guy in Havana who says to me “All I used to see here in Havana, you call this drab and dull, we see it as a cleaner city. It’s true, the paint is peeling off the walls, but you don’t see kids begging in the streets anymore and you don’t see prostitutes.” Prostitution used to be one of the biggest industries. And today this man is going to night school. He said “I could read! I can read, do you know what it means to be able to read? Do you know what it means to be able not to read?”
I remember when I gave my book to my father. I dedicated a book of mine to him, “Power and the Powerless” to my father, I said “To my father with my love,” I gave him a copy of the book, he opened it up and looked at it. He had only gone to the seventh grade, he was the son of an immigrant, a working-class Italian. He opens the book and he starts looking through it, and he gets misty-eyed, very misty-eyed. And I thought it was because he was so touched that his son had dedicated a book to him. That wasn’t the reason. He looks up to me and he says ‘I can’t read this, kid” I said “That’s okay dad, neither can the students, don’t worry about that. I mean I wrote it for you, it’s your book and you don’t have to read it. It’s a very complicated book, an academic book. He says, “I can’t read this book.” And the defeat. The defeat that man felt. That’s what illiteracy is about, that’s what the joy of literacy programs is. That’s why you have people in Nicaragua walking proud now for the first time. They were treated like animals before, they weren’t allowed to read, they weren’t taught to read.
So, you compare a country from what it came from, with all it’s imperfections. And those who demand instant perfection the day after the revolution, they go up and say “Are there civil liberties for the fascists? Are they gonna be allowed their newspapers and their radio programs, are they gonna be able to keep all their farms? The passion that some of our liberals feel, the day after the revolution, the passion and concern they feel for the fascists, the civil rights and civil liberties of those fascists who are dumping and destroying and murdering people before. Now the revolution has gotta be perfect, it’s gotta be flawless. Well that isn’t my criteria, my criteria is what happens to those people who couldn’t read? What happens to those babies that couldn’t eat, that died of hunger? And that’s why I support revolution. The revolution that feeds the children gets my support. Not blindly, not unqualified. And the Reaganite government that tries to stop that kind of process, that tries to keep those people in poverty and illiteracy and hunger, that gets my undiluted animosity and opposition.
Here I mean to most emphasize the last paragraph, though the preceding paragraphs are certainly relevant. “Are there civil liberties for the fascists?”
I’m not the person you’re replying to, but I think you missed the whole point of GarbageShoot asking you specifically about Allende.
just based on a small snippet of reading about them, I think in general […]
I think this is the main problem here: a lack of knowledge about the historical context of “authoritarian” socialist projects, but nevertheless making generalized statements about them without even considering the material reasons why they were by necessity “authoritarian.” Read up more about the history of Chile and consider what happened to Allende and the hope of a socialist Chile. Who came after Allende (and almost as important, who installed that successor)? Why do these events seem so familiar when learning about every other attempt, successful or not, to bring about a communist society? When you’ve done that, you will at the very least have a leg to stand on when criticizing so-called tankie authoritarianism.
I’d also suggest reading The Jakarta Method. Here’s a somewhat relevant quote from it:
This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask: “Who was right?”
In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?
Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington.
Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence of a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported – what the rich countries said, rather than what they did.
What’s a tankie and how do you differentiate yourself from them as a socialist
A tankie is someone who blindly supports authoritarian regimes simply because they’re anti-west
And by blind. You mean checking the numbers on us propaganda and realize it is lies written in blood?
See that’s the thing: the fact that the west lies doesn’t mean that the east tells the truth. You are heavily skeptical of what the west has to say (good) but mostly uncritical of what any communist government has to say (bad).
Capitalist countries have done horrible things, but so have self-proclaimed communist countries
I have entire history books about how the west lies.
There is not a similar body of data about the loss of the east. Is it perfect? No. Do we have any reason to belive they are as bad or bad in the same kind of way as the people who oppose them? No.
General note: Most authors publishing critical material of the west in the (free speech) west don’t get silenced (edit: although professional blacklisting is all too common). Yes, I’m sure there are exceptions. You might not want to do that openly in China, Iran, or Russia these days, because the risks are well known/accepted. It definitely makes life harder for scholars and historians.
Do you have any evidence of China suppressing criticism? We know the western media openly brags about making up stories about the east.
I can find plenty of stories of publishing houses declining to publish material. That is effectively censorship but because it is done by a company we don’t care
Russia and Iran are more like the US than China so considering them as one unit is not helpful.
China seems to be far more about censorship and self-censorship. When public figures disappear from the public eye, they often reappear at some point. I hold great hopes for China’s future, and its potential as a successful & peaceful role model. Xi worries me a bit though.
They are not liberals. Here in America the anivaxx movement has kill tens of thousands to millions depending on how you do the math. In a better world stuff like that would have been censored. It only causes hardship and wastes resources. China does censor stuff like that. Now, does China have boomers that take that instinct too far? Probably. However they don’t have school shooters ever single day. They have 3x the population of us and that doesn’t happen there. So something is working there and something isn’t working here. A full rejection of their system is silly given how well it seems to work for most of them most of the time. Especially since, in every single case we can observe our system failing us most of the time.
How do you differentiate yourself from them as a socialist? What is your theory of power and how it relates to authority, revolutions, and the working class that causes you to make this separation between supporting non-western communist countries and not?
I never said that I don’t support communist countries. What I do not support are abuses of power by authoritarian leaders, even if they claim to be abusing their power in order to bring about a communist state.
Tankies accept most/all atrocities committed by so-called communist leaders with a “the ends justify the means” attitude that I do not share.
To be fair killing nazis is pretty cool. We made some movies about it.
It is neat you are a fan of doing things where the ends do not justify the means. How do bathing moral decay like that feel?
Have you never heard the phrase “the ends justify the means” before? It’s a pretty common phrase.
It means that any action, no matter how unethical or morally reprehensible, is acceptable as long as it is done to accomplish a goal that is deemed good.
This is the tankie attitude.
To reject this means that there are limitations on what actions are acceptable in pursuit of a goal. That there are some actions that are too repugnant to be justified.
That’s just thought-terminating. There’s no universal truth that ends do or do not justify means.
Is locking up a sex offender to prevent further victimization justifiable? Is taking bread from a store to feed a starving person justifiable? Is banning false advertisement justifiable? Is requiring licensure for medical practice justifiable? Those actions are all means that directly violate some conception of liberal human rights.
Additionally, there’s often not a clear delineation, in the real world, between means and ends. The real world is made up of complex networks of powers and interests competing against each other, regardless of what can or cannot be justified. We believe in advancing working class power, interests, and rights, which by definition necessitates undermining the power, interests, and rights of the ruling class and its enforcers/enablers. Within that framework we accept and perform criticisms of the methods used to progress those goals, but only inasmuch as those critiques can help to refine strategy and inform future liberatory movements. Otherwise it’s either carrying water for US interests or squabbling about the moral standing of dead people.
I don’t think you said anything meaningfully different from what I already said.
You do not consider the abhorrent unethical nature of certain actions as being a valid argument against taking those actions in the pursuit of establishing a communist society. The only criticism you’ll entertain is that certain actions may be ineffective or inefficient at accomplishing that goal.
I’m sorry, maybe I’m misunderstanding here. I think the delineation between authoritarian regimes and non-authoritarian governments is pretty clear - are you implying that all socialist and communist influenced governments are necessarily authoritarian?
I believe they are suggesting that, if “authoritarian” means anything, that every large state that has ever existed was “authoritarian,” though some diffuse the authority through things like enclosure of the commons combined with strict property laws or other, older methods like religious law.
No, I’m suggesting that authoritarian is a meaningless term unless defined specifically and was asking what theories of power and authority they had for making the delineation they are.
The derogatory term authoritarian is always leveled at socialist or communist countries, and never capitalist ones even though capitalist countries restrict rights for the majority of their populations by the very nature of the inherent power structure in capitalism. Even though communist countries usually enjoy far more decentralised authority, better voting rights, and higher political involvement in the populace, they are labeled as “authoritarian,” the implication being that they need “freedom” aka capitalism
What? The term authoritarian is thrown at non-communist/capitalist nations all the time. Syria, Nazi Germany, Libya, Franco’s Spain, Modern Russia, and a million other instances. Authoritarian is a clearly defined term and is in no way exclusively applied to communist nations in almost any circles. It also happens to have been applied to most “communist” countries because most of them have been authoritarian
Notice you didn’t name the United States which is just as authoritarian as modern Russia by any definition we choose (voting rights? participation in political process? allowed dissent? access to clean water? basic access to healthcare? food desserts? policies meant to keep people in poverty?). That’s my point. It’s an ethereal term unless properly defined.
We’ll have to set Libya aside since after given “freedom,” there are now literal slave traders everywhere.
I don’t particularly care as that wasn’t my point. My point was to disagree with your comment prior which stated that authoritarian as a term was mainly used as a truncheon against communist nations in order to increase support for capitalism, which it isn’t.
Yeah, but you doing that is unhelpful. It is confusing people because that is not a reasonable place to find criticism with the argument. Too much precision is not helpful in arguments and the CIA literally ran propaganda programs to get people to try to bog down any discussion of communism with meaningless minutiae. So, do better or something.
It’s not clearly defined at all; try to give a definition of authoritarianism that applies to all of the countries frequently described as authoritarian, but not to any of the ones that aren’t, and you’ll see how vague a term it is.
Countries frequently have authoritarian tendencies without being overwhelmingly described as an authoritarian nation. When a nations primary mode of function is in authoritarian action it ceases to be a country I would consider something anyone should aim to emulate, which is why most people have problems with tankies and their support of the USSR or the CCP. It is fine to point at those countries and say “hey for all of their faults they managed to do X pretty well” but an entirely different thing to look at them and say “if only they came out on top, the world would be a much better place today”.
All nations primary mode of function is authoritarian action, and all revolutions too.
It really isn’t, I can tell you from personal experience that this will absolutely get you labelled a tankie.
I hope you can appreciate that you just said absolutely nothing concrete whatsoever.
spoiler
ALL nations and ALL governments’ ‘primary mode of function’ is ‘authoritarian action’. You can’t run a water main without using ‘authoritarian action’ to secure right of way.
The terms you’re using are vapor.
My guy, that’s an awful lot of assumptions to be making about the general mindset of multiple nations, each of which contains millions of people. Derogatory? I’m pretty sure that authoritarianism has a dictionary definition lol. “Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting.” From Wikipedia, just as a quick Google grab.
So do you think that, say, WW2 Italy wasn’t authoritarian? Or same-era Japan? Fascist nations are (by the above definition) authoritarian, so that actually includes tons of non-communist nations, both current and historical. Similarly, just because a nation is communist, does not make it magically except from having corrupt, authoritarian government. Id even say that America is well on its way to authoritarianism, and the right/neo-libs continue to salivate over the chance to completely fuck over the common person in exchange for a quick buck.
Genuinely, because I’m always looking to learn more; how does capitalism as an economic system inherently restrict rights? My understanding of the core premise is that it turns labor into a conceptual currency that we then use to acquire goods. It’s not, theoretically, at least, inherently oppressive. In practice, it’s been clearly a shit-show that causes more suffering than just about anything else on the planet.
As a side note; I’m deeply anti-capitalist, I’m also deeply anti-fascist and anti-authoritarian. I hate the idea that a human being is only worth the utility they provide, and I also hate the idea that oppression is a necessary consequence of an attempt to liberate the people of a nation from hyper-capitalist wagemongering. I’d like to think there’s a world where we can live and not oppress anyone, can genuinely engage in discourse and learn from each other without judgement.
If capitalism isn’t authoritarian why do we spend most of our federal budget on making sure people can’t leave the system?
Why does my boss get to decide my hair color?
Why is everything in my life dictated by the authority of money. How is living with that authoritarian boot on my neck freedom? I would be less free in a country like Cuba where I can marry who I want and leave my job without losing access to medicine?
When you say making sure people can’t leave the system, do you mean the military budget? Which is for sure super fucked- no doubt there. I think the driving force behind most warmongering is profit, as opposed to oppression for the sake of preventing dissent. Obviously CIA operations in foreign countries (and within the borders of the US) through time have shown we’re certainly willing to kill and ruin economies for control, however my (admittedly limited) understanding of a lot of those instances is that they are primarily built upon promises of extending geopolitical control as opposed to pursuing pure capital.
I think about the difference between the gulf war/Iraq/Afghanistan, which were for sure about extending control in an area rich with a resource that is incredibly valuable, and Korea and Vietnam -huge examples of attempting to avoid allowing political rivals to accumulate power globally.
Honestly I think workers rights is for sure an example of modern American policy being vastly (intentionally, in part) unequipped for modern capitalism. I don’t know if I think that it makes the core concepts of capitalism flawed- workers will need to work regardless of the economic system, and as long as people are working, there’s a power dynamic between workers and those who are utilizing their labor- the farmer will always need to sell their crops, and they can’t control if buyers won’t associate with them due to their hair color, or religious preferences, etc.
I don’t have an answer for that last bit- I think that’s where a just government that serves its people would be able to step in and provide for people who need it. I know countries are toying with Universal Basic Income, but ultimately it’s a complicated issue that doesn’t have an easy answer that I’m aware of.
I’m not sure how capitalism inherently prevents you from marrying who you’d like - could you elaborate on that? Do you mean things like marrying into debt? I definitely agree that the American healthcare system is oppressive - that’s absolutely a symptom of late-stage capitalism and the GLORY OF THE “INVISIBLE HAND” of the unregulated market. I think that’s one of those areas where a just government would be providing for its citizens.
What do we do with the economies once we controll them? We open the markets to our businesses and they raid the place. As our government is cpaitlaist all the decisions are based on making money. All those politicians that decide who to go to war with own stock in the companies that will profit. There is no difference between those drives.
Why did we not want rivals to gain power? Just vanity? No. The risk to future profits. When you look at wages and workers rights when the USSR fell the Capitalists had no competition. Wages were lowered everywhere as conditions would permit. After all, where else could people go,?
As to workers rights it is pretty simple. All that needs to be is that workers are given dignity. My boss can fire me and I might starve to death. If my survival wasn’t based on pleasing the most greedy people then I could make better decisions about how to use my time. So, just more money and safety. As communists we have a very specific idea we have about how to acomplish that.
Depending on what sate you live in you could very easily be fired for being queer. Because your ability to survive us based on money anything that riskes that is effectively not permitted by capitalism.
Why are you unable to explain it then?
I think the dictionary definition is as I mentioned in a below comment, but the colloquial meaning has more to do with censorship by the government and restrictions on freedoms than go beyond those necessary for the health and welfare of other citizens.
What do you think of Chile under Allende? Do you think it met this standard?
So just based on a small snippet of reading about them, I think in general I have a favorable opinion of Allende’s policy. Part of it is hard because, while he did some things that I agree with 10000% like increasing access to education and making basics like bread accessible, I don’t have enough context to accurately judge my feelings on some of the other policies that he enacted, like land seizure. The other half of that is it’s hard to see the long-term effects of policies that were then invalidated by a CIA-led coup and Pinochet.
Do you know of any places where his policies actively (for the context of our previous conversation) would be considered “authoritarian”?
Well, since you like reading (which is cool and good!) there’s a neat book on Cybersyn, but I was actually going in a slightly different direction. I respect the project Allende lead, but it’s undeniable that it was a catastrophic failure. Allende is one of many examples of attempting a gentle touch and underestimating the sheer brutality that is the reality of capitalist encirclement for a socialist state.
Allende was conciliatory when he should have been firm and his lax approach to purging (i.e. basically not doing it) is what very directly laid the groundwork for the coup that was the death of him and many other Chileans under one of the most vicious dictators the world has ever seen.
Someone recently reposted a Michael Parenti quote that I think discusses elements of this well:
Here I mean to most emphasize the last paragraph, though the preceding paragraphs are certainly relevant. “Are there civil liberties for the fascists?”
I’m not the person you’re replying to, but I think you missed the whole point of GarbageShoot asking you specifically about Allende.
I think this is the main problem here: a lack of knowledge about the historical context of “authoritarian” socialist projects, but nevertheless making generalized statements about them without even considering the material reasons why they were by necessity “authoritarian.” Read up more about the history of Chile and consider what happened to Allende and the hope of a socialist Chile. Who came after Allende (and almost as important, who installed that successor)? Why do these events seem so familiar when learning about every other attempt, successful or not, to bring about a communist society? When you’ve done that, you will at the very least have a leg to stand on when criticizing so-called tankie authoritarianism.
I’d also suggest reading The Jakarta Method. Here’s a somewhat relevant quote from it: