How’s about a website that generates money, like Facebook or YouTube? Can you own that?
What about products that designed to create ongoing streams of revenue, like a patent on an invention or a piece of art you can collect royalties from every time it is displayed? The USSR famously took ownership of Tetris away from its creator.
Under communism, how does the stock market work? I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s pretty hard to imagine getting rid of it now that the global economy is pretty much dependent on it.
Today, five countries exist that can be said to be communist: China, Russia, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. Of those five, none have achieved actual communism, and several have inarguably embraced capitalism to a great extent. All of them have essentially authoritarian governments. Which is unsurprising, since a dictatorship of the proletariat is central to the Marxist vision of how to create a communist society, and involves the creation of a single-party transitional government that forcibly suppresses all its critics and rivals.
I’m not big into capitalism and I think we should implement plenty of socialist reforms, but I will never understand why some people on the Left—or anyone for that matter—think communism is what we should be striving for.
Under communism, how does the stock market work? I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s pretty hard to imagine getting rid of it now that the global economy is pretty much dependent on it.
Under capitalism, how would fiefs work? I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s pretty hard to imagine getting rid of it now that our grain reserves are pretty much dependent on it.
“Today, five countries exist that can be said to be communist: China, Russia”
Tell me you have no idea what you are talking about without directly telling me you have no idea what you are talking about. In what way can today’s Russia “be said to be communist”, and how does its current, very explicitly anti-communist government, contribute to the point you are making?
You can replace Russia with North Korea if it suits you, I forgot to include that one. Yes, the USSR was communist, while modern day Russia much less so. Doesn’t change my point and doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.
It’s not a quasi-mistake, it’s an error that betrays at best a bad case of brainworms and at worst a grievous misunderstanding of history that may well have happened in your lifetime.
Stock market? The thing where you buy tiny fractional ownership of of a company, too small to influence it, then try to sell that legal construct for a little more to someone else later? Why would you need that at all?
The USSR famously took ownership of Tetris away from its creator.
He developed the game on company time. If he’d lived in a capitalist country, the government wouldn’t have taken control of Tetris, but the company would have. Every software company contract I’ve ever heard of has a clause that says the company owns any code you produce while working there.
Yes, but you choose to work for a company. Don’t pretend that’s the same as the government of the country you happen to be born in taking ownership of your creations. In a capitalist country, had Alexey Pajitnov chosen to develop the game himself, he would have made much more from it. If he had done that in the USSR, he’d still have his creation and all its monetary proceeds taken away from him.
No you can’t own a platform like youtube or facebook, but you could make content on it, intellectul propriety is not a thing as you don’t have to produce art just to get a monetary return, but just because you enjoy doing so, there’s no need of a stock market in an ideal communist world because everyone gets what they need based on what they can provide, but if it’s just a country i guess it’s the government who takes care of it.
Regarding those 5 countries i’m not sure of every one of them, but talking about China as you said it’s not a communist country but it is not a dictatorship of the proletarian either, as it’s not the proletarian class nor their democratically elected representatives who govern the country.
In the end i’ll add that greed is not more “human nature” that wishing to kill someone annoying.
How’s about a website that generates money, like Facebook or YouTube? Can you own that?
What about products that designed to create ongoing streams of revenue, like a patent on an invention or a piece of art you can collect royalties from every time it is displayed? The USSR famously took ownership of Tetris away from its creator.
Under communism, how does the stock market work? I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s pretty hard to imagine getting rid of it now that the global economy is pretty much dependent on it.
Today, five countries exist that can be said to be communist: China, Russia, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. Of those five, none have achieved actual communism, and several have inarguably embraced capitalism to a great extent. All of them have essentially authoritarian governments. Which is unsurprising, since a dictatorship of the proletariat is central to the Marxist vision of how to create a communist society, and involves the creation of a single-party transitional government that forcibly suppresses all its critics and rivals.
I’m not big into capitalism and I think we should implement plenty of socialist reforms, but I will never understand why some people on the Left—or anyone for that matter—think communism is what we should be striving for.
Under capitalism, how would fiefs work? I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s pretty hard to imagine getting rid of it now that our grain reserves are pretty much dependent on it.
“Today, five countries exist that can be said to be communist: China, Russia”
Tell me you have no idea what you are talking about without directly telling me you have no idea what you are talking about. In what way can today’s Russia “be said to be communist”, and how does its current, very explicitly anti-communist government, contribute to the point you are making?
You can replace Russia with North Korea if it suits you, I forgot to include that one. Yes, the USSR was communist, while modern day Russia much less so. Doesn’t change my point and doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Modern Russian is a capitalist oligarchy. Your entire position is based on ignorance of how the world functions.
You point out one quasi-mistake I made and all of a sudden my entire position is false and based on ignorance of how the world functions?
People like you are what make the internet a shitty place to be sometimes.
It’s not a quasi-mistake, it’s an error that betrays at best a bad case of brainworms and at worst a grievous misunderstanding of history that may well have happened in your lifetime.
Stock market? The thing where you buy tiny fractional ownership of of a company, too small to influence it, then try to sell that legal construct for a little more to someone else later? Why would you need that at all?
As I said, not a fan of it, but the global economy is pretty entrenched in it. Can’t just get rid of it cold turkey style.
He developed the game on company time. If he’d lived in a capitalist country, the government wouldn’t have taken control of Tetris, but the company would have. Every software company contract I’ve ever heard of has a clause that says the company owns any code you produce while working there.
I’ve worked at a handful of companies and am currently employed at one that do not do this.
Yes, but you choose to work for a company. Don’t pretend that’s the same as the government of the country you happen to be born in taking ownership of your creations. In a capitalist country, had Alexey Pajitnov chosen to develop the game himself, he would have made much more from it. If he had done that in the USSR, he’d still have his creation and all its monetary proceeds taken away from him.
Under capitalism your choice is to sell yourself or become destitute. That’s not really a choice, it’s just indirect coercion.
Not going to waste my time with someone who has such absolutist views untethered to reality.
Xoxo 💋
No you can’t own a platform like youtube or facebook, but you could make content on it, intellectul propriety is not a thing as you don’t have to produce art just to get a monetary return, but just because you enjoy doing so, there’s no need of a stock market in an ideal communist world because everyone gets what they need based on what they can provide, but if it’s just a country i guess it’s the government who takes care of it.
Regarding those 5 countries i’m not sure of every one of them, but talking about China as you said it’s not a communist country but it is not a dictatorship of the proletarian either, as it’s not the proletarian class nor their democratically elected representatives who govern the country.
In the end i’ll add that greed is not more “human nature” that wishing to kill someone annoying.
We didn’t own Reddit’s platform, but we made content and engagement for that community anyway.
That worked out awesome. Let’s scale it up to an entire society.
I really can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic. I think so, but Poe’s Law
Give me an example of a communist country that has not resulted in the creation of an authoritarian government.