this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Okay, but how do you even miss this?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Schniffs …Idiology

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Not a huge trek fan. Watched some TOS in syndication in HS. Watched disco, Lower Decks, and started Brave New Worlds recently. The only government I can really recall are tribunals and starfleet which seems to be a council. Do they often talk over overarching Federation government proceedings? I mean, it's definitely a utopia if just for the post-scarcity.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

It’s a bureaucratic nightmare to maintain the utopia tends to be the big flaw. And they’re ideological to a fault, but are also willing to look away while stuff gets done for them unethically.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Of course. It works well in an economy of plenty.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

We've got one of those already

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Not on the scale of Star Trek, where advanced technology such as replicators allows them to create food out of waste through atomic recomposition. Modern-day communist societies such as the Soviet Union are plagued by hunger and starvation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%931933

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

USSR and China aren't really communist countries. They are, at best, revisionist. They are command economies with state-capitalism and authoritarian rulers that definitely have different social classes. While USSR ostensibly got rid of personal property, that just entailed the authoritarian owning everything. Both countries lied to the people to get a socialist revolution started and then seized all power for their party (which don't exist in communism).

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

China is about as communist as the DPRK is democratic.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

With all due respect some parts are crudely wrong and some absurd, and the decisiveness with which you state it is unjustified and makes it hard to take you seriously.

USSR ostensibly got rid of personal property

Absolutely not. They got rid of private property. Personal property means the ownership over your personal belongings. Private property is the ownership of non-governmental entities. What existed in the USSR was public property - the property of the state

USSR was state-capitalist

Also: No. Capitalism is defined by the existence of private property, concretely the private ownership of the means of production. There was no private property.

There also were no competitive markets, no "free" price systems nor a ubiquitous profit motive, no finance capital and certainly more characteristics of capitalism.

You can't call the USSR capitalist in any capacity, that would be ignorant, the best label to assign it I've heard is: "state-socialist".

Both countries lied to the people to get a socialist revolution started

Where is that from? NED weekly magazine?;)

The USSR did fail the people in many regards, sometimes criminally so, and its important to learn from them, but for that to happen we must undertake a serious attempt at understanding them. There is a lot of neoliberal propaganda ("history is written by the winners" etc).

I didn't talk about China bc calling it capitalist is significantly less absurd but rest assured I don't subscribe to your statement.

Obligatory Michael Parenti

No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except for the ones that succeed

Its forgivable we have all been molded by the propaganda of out capitalist ruling class, but we can't be content with that. In the end you seem to be making a nod to communism, if that is true then stay on course we need a better socialism but we can't expect to have it if we're not willing to learn

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

TIL the Soviet Union is still around

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No, but it's still within the modern era of technology.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

TIL the Soviet Union in 1930 had comparable technology to today

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Modern doesn't mean just like today. The modern era of technology is basically everything after the industrial revolution.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

May have something to do with modern capitalist nations taking economic action against modern communist countries, at least in part. Not that they don't have their own issues caused by an unreasonably sensitive transition.

[–] Batman 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I feel if you assume the good will which a communist society would need to flourish, a capitalist society would also be egalitarian under similar conditions.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic 4 points 2 years ago

Capitalism encourages and even requires antagonism, so even if people started as good, it is difficult to maintain that in the population over generations. In communism, the reward for being greedy or lazy is insignificant. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a communist, but I would say that I'm cynical of capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Capitalism is inherently anti-egalitarian in the same way feudalism is.

[–] Batman 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Not if you assume people will be altruistic and that the system will not be corrupt, which are the assumptions people make for theoretical communism. Then it too can be egalitarian.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

No, capitalism concentrates wealth by design. No corruption is required (but it does help).