Image Transcription:
An 8-panel Phoebe Teaching Joey meme.
The first panel is Phoebe from Friends saying "Russia".
The second panel is Joey from the same show replying with "Russia".
The third panel is Phoebe saying "has invaded".
The fourth panel is Joey repeating back "has invaded".
The fifth panel is Phoebe saying "Ukraine".
The sixth panel is Joey repeating back "Ukraine".
The seventh panel is Phoebe saying the completed phrase "Russia has invaded Ukraine".
The final panel shows Joey proudly proclaiming "NATO just started a proxy war".
I exclude Tankies from the far left. Because at its heart, the left is anti-authoritarian. Tankies lost the plot somewhere and decided that full authoritarianism was the way to go, regardless of the human suffering that lead to.
An authoritarian regime that claims to be communist is no closer to the communist ideal of a stateless utopia than a fully capitalistic state. If the capitalistic state is democratic with popular socialist programs, then it's actually closer to the communist ideal than an authoritarian state that merely claims communism. I'm using European democracies as my gold standard.
Well, no. It's not. The left/right spectrum is mostly understood as an economic spectrum, with the right believing in individual ownership of capital, the means of production, and land (and, of course, personal property), with the left believing in collective ownership of capital, the means of production, real estate (and in fringe cases, no personal property). Collectivism doesn't necessarily mean anti-authoritarian; anarchists are just one flavor of collectivists.
Marxist theory states that authoritarian control is a necessary precondition to absolute communism, until everyone is enlightened enough (more or less; I'm greatly simplifying this, since his treatise is 500+ pages and dense as hell) to be able to fully self-govern in a communist utopia.
I tend to agree that a democratic society that has strong collectivist tendencies while preserving strong individual autonomy is more desirable than an authoritarian gov't. Personally, I tend towards anarchism, but my view of humanity has dimmed enough in the last decade that I no longer believe that it's a viable form or governance.
I would love if the US adopted a Euro style social democracy. Shit would be so much better.
Take it from a European - no it wont, we're like 2 steps behind you in the race to the bottom.
Don't aspire to have the polite facade over the dumpster fire like we do, aspire to abolish the system entirely.
Which country? Europe has a pretty large spectrum of policies depending where you live. On average though I'd say your standards of living are still better than what the average American would enjoy.