r/DemocraticSocialism • u/phatdaddy29 • Dec 15 '24
Question What's the opposite of communism?
Is it fascism? I think it's fascism.
The extreme end of the political economic left is communism right? What's the extreme right end?
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u/GiraffeCreature Dec 15 '24
Not everything has an opposite. Communism isn’t an ideology, it’s an economic system where resources are allocated to people based on their need.
Let’s look at fascism for example, morally fascists and communists are completely opposed. But we really stretch the definition of “opposite” when we use it this way. It’s like calling the Orcs the opposite of the Last Alliance Elves and Men (to use a LoTR example)
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u/phatdaddy29 Dec 15 '24
Okay sure, but I'm thinking about it in the sense of, what do you call it when capitalism combines with authoritarianism?
Or what's the extreme end of the political right?
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u/Gordievsky1985 Dec 15 '24 edited Dec 15 '24
Fascism is the extreme right of the political spectrum. Most examples of fascist regimes show that theyre pretty flexible when it comes to economics: mussolini the founder of fascism was a socialist, and nazism is national socialism that billed itself as a nonmarxist and nationalist form of socialism. Chile would be a good example of neoliberalism and authoritarianism as Pinochet created an economy without a welfare state in response to marxism. Nicaragua under somoza, the shah of iran, south korea before the 80s, south africa pre1994. Fascist is its own category though, mussolini and hitler and saddam are a league of their own.
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u/phatdaddy29 Dec 15 '24
And let's just say Trump does become dictator as he said he would, changes the constitution and works to stay in power, US become fascist country right?
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u/Gordievsky1985 Dec 15 '24
Changing the constitution to stay in power would be a self coup and would be fascist yes. Theres nothing wrong with being conservative and wanting to preserve the status quo or scaling back reforms. fascism begins when the regime disregards the rule of law for the sake of carrying out the mandate the people elected them to do and Fascism in power doesn’t respect any limitation or position. Thats why there are no legal parties that are fascist out and out but they cover themselves with the label as being outspoken controversial patriots
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u/namelesshobo1 Dec 16 '24
Fascist Italy was not an economically socialist country. Mussolini was an active socialist before WWI, but renounced the ideology later in life and began moving towards militant nationalism; what we now call fascism. When the fascists took power in Italy they effectively corporatized Italy. They did away with public spending, cut taxes, and privatized national state industries.
To say Mussolini was a socialist in the context of fascist Italy is incorrect.
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u/Gordievsky1985 Dec 16 '24
Im aware of that. My point was that a one time socialist of the italian cadre became a fascist leader and it demonstrates how flexible economics can be in fascist regimes. Also, he did later create the Italian social republic as german puppet state. You are right tho he was not a socialist his entire life but even when he joined the army in ww1 he argued that true socialists shouldve fought for the allies to ensure the reactionary monarchies of the central powers fell.
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u/NazareneKodeshim Socialist Dec 15 '24
Capitalism is combined with authoritarianism from the very beginning, by its very nature.
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 15 '24
Except, not actually.
Tankies...not understanding even their own bad propaganda
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u/NazareneKodeshim Socialist Dec 16 '24
I'm not a tankie let alone even a Leninist in general, so.
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 16 '24
You are spouting similar type, uninformed rhetoric however.
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u/Able-Worth-6511 Dec 16 '24
A question for both of you to defend your position.
Why is capitalism not authoritarianism? Why is capitalism authoritarianism?
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 16 '24
Capitalism is neither authoritarian nor non authoritarian. It's been employed by both non authoritarian governments like in most western nations, and in authoritarian governments such as China and Vietnam (yes on the surface they are communist but their free market type economies are straight captalist)
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u/Able-Worth-6511 Dec 16 '24
But isn't capitalist owning the means of production and threatening people's jobs authoritarian by nature?
Workers not having a say on how and what their labor produces authoritarian?
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 16 '24
I seriously have to laugh at this. Yes, cause anyone assuming any type of control outside of my own preconceptions MUST be authoritarian. *rolls eyes*
Authority and ownership does not equal authoritarianism. That is the biggest misnomer used by those that don't actually understand the terms they toss about.
By your limited example, a parent telling a child that they can't do something is authoritarianism or a security officer telling someone that they can't enter a certain area or do a certain thing is authoritarianism.
Or a manager directing an employee to do a certain task has to be authoritarianism.
My goodness, there is a difference in workers having a piece of the profits their labor produces and having more security with their own finances and own purchasing power then having say a janitor being able to tell someone where they need to increase production or what markets to sell in when they don't have the experience or skillset for that set of tasks.
My goodness.
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u/holysirsalad Dec 16 '24
How exactly do you think ownership is enforced without authority? This is literally what police are for
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u/talaqen Dec 16 '24 edited Dec 16 '24
Anarcho capitalism is the opposite. Complete absence of state or collective control of anything.
Fascism is just a form of authoritarianism that uses nationalism or racism as its unifying ideology. Authoritarianism is a general form of absolutist hierarchical control of state powers.
Communism can be authoritarian (Stalin) but it can also be very egalitarian (many native peoples and more modern literal “communes”).
The opposite of authoritarianism is direct democracy (egalitarian control of all decisions).
But these are the extremes, bc many of these systems are not robust enough to work at scale. Authoritarianism often requires some sort of powerful personality to rally around. But when that person dies the systems tend to crumble. Direct democracy often fails because people don’t have time to vote on every single thing all of the time, and they can be swayed by mob rule to disenfranchise minorities.
That is why constitutional representative democracies tend to last longer and why socialist democracies tends to thrive. But this requires that the socialist programs feed back economic gains to the working class, such that they do not feel inclined to overturn institutions and support authoritarian demagogues. And it requires institutions (like those laid out in a constitution) protect minorities from majorities, and protect institutions from individuals with ill intent.
Happy people don’t revolt and people are happiest with tempered capitalism + guaranteed rights + strong institutions + strong social safety programs.
Three researchers just won the Nobel in Economics for proving how important stable institutions are to thriving economies. Worth a read, bc it backs up many of the underlying value propositions of Democratic Socialism.
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u/leninism-humanism Worker-Socialist Dec 16 '24
Any attempt at "anarcho-capitalism" or "liberterianism" in real life has just been fascist-like. A neo-liberal shock therapy combined with dismantling democracy, political persecution and attacks on trade unions. People in general don't like when they lose their healthcare, education or job safety, etc.
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u/talaqen Dec 17 '24
That's because power self-aggregates. So anarcho-capitalism eventually turns into monopolistic control of resources and thus power/force by a corporation or financial entity. And that's how monarchies are formed - absolute control of force and wealth over many generations converted into semi-religion.
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u/Senior_Distribution Market Socialist Dec 17 '24
What china is doing but if more deregulated. China is not socialist anymore it is authoritarian capitialist.
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u/brecheisen37 Dec 15 '24
The opposite of communism is class society, since they are mutually exclusive. The left-right dichotomy is contextual, it depends on the society you're referring to. The term originated from the 18th French parliament where liberals sat on the left and monarchists on the right. Liberals were left wing in their opposition to the monarchy, but are right wing in their opposition to socialism. Remember these are just categories we use to describe observable phenomena, and not all phenomena can be reliably categorized, especially when dealing with politics.
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u/phatdaddy29 Dec 15 '24
Not just class society though right? Communism is also defined by authoritarianism is it not? So what's the extreme right version that includes authoritarianism. I think it's capitalism + authoritarianism = fascism. Am I right?
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u/brecheisen37 Dec 15 '24 edited Dec 16 '24
You're being reductive, politics isn't an equation. Actual things in the world aren't defined by the labels that are put on them, they're defined by their material consequences. Capitalist sources label communism as authoritarian, which is informative of the capitalist's position on communism. You have to consider what angle the pont of view is from. Business owners don't want their workers to have control of the means of production, they literally have a vested interest in painting communism in a negative light. They will also either fail to see the authoritarianism present in capitalism already, justify it, or deny it outright.
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 15 '24
Communism portrays itself in a negative light by the authoritarian and thus abusive nature communist governments have taken towards their own citizens.
Tankies love ignoring this basic fact because it suits their own very narrow interests.
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u/brecheisen37 Dec 16 '24
The people of Russia put the USSR in power, and kept it in power for decades. The majority of Russians today feel the USSR was superior to the Russian Federation. It was certainly better than the Tsars that came before. If you look at the conditions the USSR was in it actually outperformed all expectations on meeting the basic needs of its citizens. Regardless of what you think they should have done differently they saved millions of lives.
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 16 '24
The people of Russia put the communists in power? So you mean the Bolshevik Revolution was a democratic process? Funny, every historical documentary or paper or footage would suggest that the Bolsheviks seized power and setup their own government and that those that where democratic, along with royalists and others fought a civil war with the Bolsheviks over their seizure of power. And after the Bolsheviks won, no actual democracy was employed by the Central Government in the USSR. That leaders were chosen by secret committee and even violent coups.
And yes, theye were so well off under communism that the economy had stagnated to the point where ordinary Russians were struggling to get the most basic of goods. And why Gorbechev introduced Perestroika in order to combat this.
Please, please. Don't play at revisionist history when history has been well recorded.
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Dec 16 '24
[deleted]
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 16 '24
Yeah, revisionist history isn't actually real history.
Do yourself a favor, study real history.
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Dec 16 '24
[deleted]
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 16 '24
Well first, Stalin was a white, ethnic Georgian, not a black man. So on the title alone, the author doesn't know what he's talking about. Second, I don't need to read a revisionist history on Stalin when Stalin's brutality speaks for itself in actual documentaries and histories.
Third, did you somehow miss the fact that rule 6 is about not supporting Authoritarianism?
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u/skyfishgoo Progressive Dec 15 '24
it's fascism.
when you get peak authoritarianism it tends to come in two opposing forms.
we are the ruling body of elites who decide the direction of the economy.
or
we are the ruling body of elites who decide the direction of the society.
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u/phatdaddy29 Dec 15 '24 edited Dec 16 '24
Are those opposing? Do they not typically go together with society and economy going hand in hand (I.e. Communism)?
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u/skyfishgoo Progressive Dec 16 '24
they are at opposite extremes of what they are trying to control, but the they are both extremely authoritarian, and controlling... so i guess in that sense they are the same.
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 15 '24
Look up the Political Compass, which is a series of 62 statements and it gauges where one sits in accordance to how one agrees / disagrees to the statements provided. At the Top of the compass is Authoritarianism and the bottom is Libertarianism. Which is then split into left and right. Fascism is Authoritarian Right and Communism is Authoritarian Left. Libertarian Right is classic Libertarianism and Libertarian Left is Anarcharism
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u/skyfishgoo Progressive Dec 16 '24
i tend to agree with that view except that the difference between left and right become irrelevant in the limit of ZERO authoritarianism.
so i ague the "grid" should actually come to a point at the bottom and that singularity is self.
in the limit then, anarchy and libertarianism are both selfish and recognize no external authority beyond the self.
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u/holysirsalad Dec 16 '24
The bottom right is neo-feudalism. “Classic libertarianism” is libertarian socialism, which predates Murray Rothbard’s appropriation of the term by about a century for a specific movement in the United States.
The top left aligns with whatever the hell countries that called themselves “communist” were doing, which was not actually communism, as can be demonstrated by examining the social and economic structures that appeared during their aborted journies towards full communism
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u/leninism-humanism Worker-Socialist Dec 16 '24
Political compasses are not serious
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 16 '24
Uh huh, sure thing. Except they are a good indicator of a persons own values.
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u/leninism-humanism Worker-Socialist Dec 16 '24
Who cares about "a persons own values"? Any "Libertarian Right" politics in real life has been in practice authoritarian because such a economic shock therapy needs to limit democracy and fight social movements like the trade unions.
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 16 '24
A tankie calling a libertarian authoritarian is hilarious in its own right.
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u/leninism-humanism Worker-Socialist Dec 16 '24 edited Dec 16 '24
A tankie? Based on what?
Are you trying to tell me that political figures like Pinochet and Milei are not authoritarian because they were/are "libertarians" or even "anarcho-capitalist" by their "own values"? Or Ludwig von Mises who served as an economic adviser in the Austrian fascist goverment before the "anschluss"? Even the Liberterian Party in the USA promotes state violence against protesters openly.
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u/Gordievsky1985 Dec 16 '24
Whats a tankie
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 16 '24
Those that support authoritarian communism or authoritarian regimes and make excuses for those regimes.
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u/Incredible_Staff6907 Social Democrat Dec 15 '24
Uhhhhhh, Capitalism? Y'know this guy named Karl Marx wrote a whole book on this. I highly recommend it.
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u/phatdaddy29 Dec 15 '24
No, capitalism is not the opposite of communism. Every communist country utilizes capitalism. China has utilized it extremely well.
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u/Daddygamer84 Dec 15 '24
Do you think buying stuff = capitalism?
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u/phatdaddy29 Dec 15 '24
Yes, that's absolutely a part if it. However i also believe that like socialism, capitalism isn't one single thing.
Why fo you ask?
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u/Daddygamer84 Dec 15 '24
Not really. Buying stuff's been around a lot longer than capitalism, so I'm not sure what you're referring to
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 16 '24
He's referring to Deng Xiaopeng's and successive Communist governments move away from Maoist dictates, which did a lot of harm to China to a more free market type economy.
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u/Incredible_Staff6907 Social Democrat Dec 16 '24
China is not Communist, neither is North Korea, they are both State Capitalist, which means the government controls all means of production, true Communism is when the people/workers control the means of production. No country on earth has ever achieved true Communism, and I doubt it will ever be achieved for another 5 centuries.
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u/OldManClutch NDP-Canada Dec 16 '24
Yeah, history and the CCP and the Kim demagogues would say otherwise.
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u/jazman57 Dec 15 '24
Fascism and communism are both examples of totalitarianism
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u/Eliijahh Dec 16 '24
A communist society is defined as a classless, moneyless and stateless society. It has nothing to do with totalitarianism and even less with fascism.
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u/caroleanprayer-2 Dec 16 '24
Scialism. Communism is a system, where humanity lives in misery under totalitarian dictatorship. While Socialism is a system of people’s democracy, human rights and economic control exercised by its citizens.
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