Individuals in struggling societies don’t always atomize, many revolutions occurred due to degradation in conditions. When the cost of fighting for change is less than doing nothing you will fight, and you will fight with others, or else you will quickly fail and be forgotten.
Curious what your definition of facism is. With a few exceptions, communist inclined states have always lead to unprecedented economic development, education, improvement of quality of life, etc. If you take all cold war propaganda at face value, you can not deny the development seen in such states; when balanced by alleged atrocities, you see a stark contrast to colnialist nations that too committed atrocities but with little to show for it.
I find the surface level historical criticisms of communist states, even if applied at an equaly superficial level, is applied to capitalist states, you would find a staggering contradiction. Maybe you should read more. Add to your socioeconomic calculus the fact that no communist state benefited from the same starting point as colonizer countries, and try to be critical of this. Consider that none of these communist states had the benifits of colonization, and when compared to other developing countries did remarkably better.
There is no contradiction. Both kinds of states are bad. Economic growth is not a “level of country goodness” meter. If it happens through horrible and harmful means I don’t care about it.
Economic growth itself is just a number, development is what matters. In addition and as a part of development I also specifically mentioned education and improvement of quality of life. You could add literacy, housing, levels of nourishment, and much, much more.
I won’t argue about history or its interpretations with you now. Just consider the path to development wealthy capitalist countries took, which involved slavery, colonialism, genocide, brutal worker suppression, and perhaps the worse working conditions in history during industrialisation.
You may attribute many horible things to communist countries. I might argue much of this is exaggerated by the media of the anti-comunist country you live in. Even if it is all true, developed capitalist countries did the same to themselves, and other peoples around the globe.
Then consider the development communist countries have had compared to undeveloped capitalist countries. People can have better lives, that is what matters.
I don’t really understand what kind of point you’re making, though. There are plenty of economic and political systems that can reach all the development and improvement to quality of life and literacy you want, yet they do it through horrible, brutal and harmful means. You yourself would be opposed to attaining these things you’re talking about through colonialism or slavery, or even through capitalism as I’m sure you’re also against social democracy like I am. My argument is that the means communist countries used to get to these ends are bad enough that I don’t care about the ends they reached. Just like I would never care about the ends reached by colonialist means.
I am not denying capitalist countries didn’t suffer from the same problems or didn’t commit the same or even more attrocities. This doesn’t excuse anything though. I am opposed to these things by principle, no matter who does them. And I’m not going to pick between two systems that do the things I’m against all the same, but one leads to prosperity quicker. I’m not playing that game.
I would rather not say for privacy. But my country of origin is irrelevant to my points. I do not support it in any way and I try to rely on it as little as possible, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s also not a colonial power at all.
There are plenty of economic and political systems that can reach all the development and improvement to quality of life and literacy you want, yet they do it through horrible, brutal and harmful means
I also want my entrance into this convo to be respectful but I don’t know how else to ask this question; can you give examples of such systems?
I would say the biggest example is social democracy. There is no denying it brings great improvements to quality of life and general happiness. They are obviously not enough to us radicals, but they do exist. Greater healthcare, greater education, greater prison systems, less homelessness, etc etc etc. But we of course know the dark side of all of that. The colonialism and “soft power” behind it. We know that, because it is still ultimately capitalism, it doesn’t eradicate the misery, it just hides it away. It makes other people have it instead of them. And we also know all of those nice things are merely concessions given by the ruling class that can easily be taken away at any time. Thus, if such a system brings improvements through means like those, I don’t care how great the improvements are, I don’t support that system.
We can also use what I’m saying to refute the fascists who say “oh, at least the trains came on time” “oh, at least everyone had a house” “oh, at least there was less crime”. Rather than going into the long and most probably ultimately pointless task of proving none of those things were historically true to the person saying them, I prefer to simply say “I don’t care. Even if that was true, if it was achieved with fascism I don’t want it.”
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Individuals in struggling societies don’t always atomize, many revolutions occurred due to degradation in conditions. When the cost of fighting for change is less than doing nothing you will fight, and you will fight with others, or else you will quickly fail and be forgotten.
Curious what your definition of facism is. With a few exceptions, communist inclined states have always lead to unprecedented economic development, education, improvement of quality of life, etc. If you take all cold war propaganda at face value, you can not deny the development seen in such states; when balanced by alleged atrocities, you see a stark contrast to colnialist nations that too committed atrocities but with little to show for it.
I find the surface level historical criticisms of communist states, even if applied at an equaly superficial level, is applied to capitalist states, you would find a staggering contradiction. Maybe you should read more. Add to your socioeconomic calculus the fact that no communist state benefited from the same starting point as colonizer countries, and try to be critical of this. Consider that none of these communist states had the benifits of colonization, and when compared to other developing countries did remarkably better.
There is no contradiction. Both kinds of states are bad. Economic growth is not a “level of country goodness” meter. If it happens through horrible and harmful means I don’t care about it.
Economic growth itself is just a number, development is what matters. In addition and as a part of development I also specifically mentioned education and improvement of quality of life. You could add literacy, housing, levels of nourishment, and much, much more.
I won’t argue about history or its interpretations with you now. Just consider the path to development wealthy capitalist countries took, which involved slavery, colonialism, genocide, brutal worker suppression, and perhaps the worse working conditions in history during industrialisation.
You may attribute many horible things to communist countries. I might argue much of this is exaggerated by the media of the anti-comunist country you live in. Even if it is all true, developed capitalist countries did the same to themselves, and other peoples around the globe.
Then consider the development communist countries have had compared to undeveloped capitalist countries. People can have better lives, that is what matters.
Example:
You can improve your literacy stats by killing illiterate people.
That wouldn’t be a good development.
Hey, thanks a lot for the respectful reply.
I don’t really understand what kind of point you’re making, though. There are plenty of economic and political systems that can reach all the development and improvement to quality of life and literacy you want, yet they do it through horrible, brutal and harmful means. You yourself would be opposed to attaining these things you’re talking about through colonialism or slavery, or even through capitalism as I’m sure you’re also against social democracy like I am. My argument is that the means communist countries used to get to these ends are bad enough that I don’t care about the ends they reached. Just like I would never care about the ends reached by colonialist means.
I am not denying capitalist countries didn’t suffer from the same problems or didn’t commit the same or even more attrocities. This doesn’t excuse anything though. I am opposed to these things by principle, no matter who does them. And I’m not going to pick between two systems that do the things I’m against all the same, but one leads to prosperity quicker. I’m not playing that game.
That is good and yet: Which country are you living in?
I would rather not say for privacy. But my country of origin is irrelevant to my points. I do not support it in any way and I try to rely on it as little as possible, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s also not a colonial power at all.
I also want my entrance into this convo to be respectful but I don’t know how else to ask this question; can you give examples of such systems?
Sure, that’s a valid and respectful question.
I would say the biggest example is social democracy. There is no denying it brings great improvements to quality of life and general happiness. They are obviously not enough to us radicals, but they do exist. Greater healthcare, greater education, greater prison systems, less homelessness, etc etc etc. But we of course know the dark side of all of that. The colonialism and “soft power” behind it. We know that, because it is still ultimately capitalism, it doesn’t eradicate the misery, it just hides it away. It makes other people have it instead of them. And we also know all of those nice things are merely concessions given by the ruling class that can easily be taken away at any time. Thus, if such a system brings improvements through means like those, I don’t care how great the improvements are, I don’t support that system.
We can also use what I’m saying to refute the fascists who say “oh, at least the trains came on time” “oh, at least everyone had a house” “oh, at least there was less crime”. Rather than going into the long and most probably ultimately pointless task of proving none of those things were historically true to the person saying them, I prefer to simply say “I don’t care. Even if that was true, if it was achieved with fascism I don’t want it.”