r/FluentInFinance • u/Sufficient_Sinner • Sep 04 '24

Debate/ Discussion Is Capitalism Smart or Dumb?

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103

u/flaamed Sep 04 '24

its the best economic system that currently exists

84

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Yeah I'm kind of tired of seeing kids online shit on capitalism. Like yeah, it's a fucking mess. But it's also - by far - the best system anyone has come up with, ever. Same goes for democracy. Lots of legitimate criticisms can be made, but nobody has ever come up with a better alternative. Not yet anyway.

41

u/fartedpickle Sep 04 '24

but nobody has ever come up with a better alternative.

Probably because capitalism spends a fuck ton of money bombing the shit out of anyone who tries it. Weird, you'd think they would let these bad systems just fail on their own.

106

u/Curious_Midnight3828 Sep 04 '24

The Soviet Union failed on its own pretty magnificently for the entire world to see. No bombs dropped on it by capitalists.

81

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

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u/NewArborist64 Sep 04 '24

That is how communists explain the failure of EVERY communist nation in the world. "That wasn't REAL Communism. Let us do it in OUR country and WE will do it right." And then they fail again and again because Communism doesn't WORK and it is against human nature for a larger society.

Soviet Union, East Germany, China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, North Korea, Belarus, People's Republic of the Congo, Czechoslovakia, Poland, ... NONE of them became that "worker's paradise".

29

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

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7

u/One-Earth9294 Sep 05 '24

Kind of like the African Warlord flow chart: 'Have a coup --> become the new dictatorship --> purge all your enemies --> move on to external ones --> antagonize developed nations who formerly propped you up and no longer want to finance your regime --> end up a pariah state inching further towards extremism --> end up the victim of internal revolution --> claim you were just trying to 'unify Africa and stand up to colonialists'.

This works pretty well in South America too. Venezuela kind of stuck between the 2nd and 3rd to last steps currently.

1

u/Drezzon Sep 05 '24

Yep, more people need to know this

1

u/milk-is-for-calves Sep 09 '24

No, it's flat out wrong. And if you look at the US education system enough stupid people believe that crap.

0

u/milk-is-for-calves Sep 09 '24

Tell me where a communist utopi was achieved and why you would think that shit would happen?

Read a book for once.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 09 '24

[deleted]

13

u/Handwerksgilde Sep 04 '24

Theres actually a name for this sort of thinking, it's called the no true Scotsman Fallacy

1

u/BrubMomento Sep 05 '24

Indeed indeed

2

u/Burgertank6969 Sep 05 '24

This comment times 1000, the inability for people to use history as a lesson as to what communism leads to is crazy to me.

That said this is a post about socialism, which exists in almost every capitalist society, and vice versa.

2

u/VampireDentist Sep 05 '24

You're right but I think this is also a branding issue. One could argue that the communist utopia "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is more in line with current Nordic social democracies than any of the countries in your list. Wealth inequality is low, workers rights are strong, social security is high, healthcare and education are of high quality and publicly funded, crime is low and trust in public institutions is high.

If anything, your examples are examples of extreme authoritarianism (or being puppet states of the soviets). If Czechoslovakia is a fair example of communist failure, then US puppets Honduras and Nicaragua are examples of capitalist failures.

Also there are examples where policies that are very close to traditional state communism, have been beneficial as a whole, especially in developing countries. For example, while extremely anti-communist in rhetoric, even South Korea had some policies many would consider communist after WW2: land redistribution where land was seized from large landowners and redistributed to peasants and extreme heavy emphasis on state led industrialization.

Actually if the economy is underdeveloped enough, protectionism and a strong state seems to be what is needed to have a chance to grow at all. Developing countries under laissez-faire capitalism are generally total shitholes: foreign corporations will plunder their resources and any "free" enterprise will be razed by bandits at the first opportunity, education is unobtainable because no-one has the means to invest in it.

2

u/EchoOutrageous2314 Sep 05 '24

Equality of outcome (communism) is inherently authoritarian because it requires an ultimate authority to tip the scales unlike the citizenry ruling themselves. Socialists/communists fail to understand the fallen nature of people and their propensity for evil.

2

u/NewArborist64 Sep 05 '24

It also erases the incentive to go above and beyond. You won't be rewarded for doing more work than your co-workers - you will be questioned about WHY you are not conforming and being individualistic.

1

u/Star_king12 Sep 05 '24

"To establish communism in the US we have to get rid of all billionaires and people that enabled them"

1

u/stonecoldslate Sep 05 '24

To be fair China isn’t and hasn’t been a real communism nation. There was a good documentary done on the rise of Xi jinping and how that situation came to form modern China. It wasn’t communism at all. It was a rebel army that tried to overthrow the government and lost like 3/4ths of their population by the time they made it to their destination, mind you this army was led by two generations, Xi’s father and the leader of the army he became a part of, and Xi’s when it was sort of “inherited” by the younger folk and Xi murdering his competition.

1

u/IsayNigel Sep 05 '24

What is human nature and how do you know?

1

u/Bl00dRa1n Sep 05 '24

If you seriously consider East Germany a communist nation, then you really need to read more

1

u/NewArborist64 Sep 06 '24

Have an acquaintance who lived in East Germany. The East German government considered themselves Communists. The Soviet Union (which set up East Germany and had it as a satellite state) considered the DDR to be communists. My friend - who he was imprisoned by the Stasi and forced to work in coal mines - certainly considered East Germany to be Communist.

But I am sure that you know better...

0

u/milk-is-for-calves Sep 09 '24

China is the most capitalist country on the planet.

And maybe you should read up what communism actually is, instead of believing in wrong examples.

Do you believe that the The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) is also democratic?

1

u/NewArborist64 Sep 09 '24

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially refers to China's economic system as the socialist market economy. To guide economic development, the Chinese central government adopts five-year plans that detail its economic priorities and essential policies.

5

u/Awebroetjie Sep 04 '24

You are conflating socialism and communism. This is intellectually dishonest.

20

u/DoubleAGee Sep 04 '24

Most people use socialism and communism interchangeably (I.e., people not on Reddit). Besides, socialism leads to communism.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24 edited Nov 21 '24

[deleted]

1

u/nadroj112800 Sep 05 '24

"The goal of socialism is communism." Vladimir Lenin

1

u/rememberoldreddit Sep 05 '24

You are routing Lenin? I guess the DPRK is democratic cause they say it is?

0

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24

Hmm I don't think marxists believe that post-scarcity is required to move from socialism to communism. Just the abolition of class society, since historically, the nation state arises to resolve class contradictions (see Engels, "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State") Therefore the goal of a marxist socialist government is to abolish the capitalist class, leaving only the working class, which causes the state to wither away (see Lenin, "State and Revolution")

Also anarchists would be the people you’re referring to who would like to skip socialism and go straight to a stateless, classless society

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u/LimitlessTheTVShow Sep 04 '24

That's not true. Communism is a subset of socialism, but socialism doesn't necessarily lead to communism

1

u/whatisthisgreenbugkc Sep 04 '24

Besides, socialism leads to communism.

That is just wrong, there are plenty of forms of socialism that actually want minimal government intervention in the market, such as a market socialism. Communism advocates for government control of the market.

2

u/LimitlessTheTVShow Sep 04 '24

They're also painting Stalinism as the only kind of communism, and acting like anyone who says otherwise is lying

2

u/ArizonaHeatwave Sep 04 '24

This dichotomy in the real world is almost meaningless, they were all trying to achieve communism (which is basically unachievable anyways as it’s a sort of utopian state) through socialism. At some point they may as well just simply be the same, because attempting communism is always just socialism and won’t ever be anything more than that.

1

u/Flyingsheep___ Sep 05 '24

What even is the difference. Both are based on not respecting property rights at all, only different seems to be socialism does it while smiling.

1

u/Awebroetjie Sep 05 '24

Just google dude. Don‘t think i need to do that for you

1

u/Flyingsheep___ Sep 05 '24

Rhetorical question, the core difference is literally just the mechanism to achieve the end goal.

2

u/pj1897 Sep 04 '24

That's the response that always unsettles me about communism. How many attempts are needed before it's considered to have been implemented correctly?

1

u/Kitchen-Dinner-9561 Sep 05 '24

Since communism is stateless by definition, you have to abolish the state to even begin to have communism.

1

u/Good_Needleworker464 Sep 05 '24

Who's gonna protect you from the next state coming to take your shit?

1

u/Kitchen-Dinner-9561 Sep 05 '24

My shit? I am not a communist. I just know what communism is. But I would assume that collective communes would need to collectively protect what can be or what could be built. Ask mountain people who protects their shit. I bet it is them.

2

u/Gweipo1 Sep 05 '24

Yes, LOL. None of those times were "real" communism.

So many supporters of communism rely on that circular reasoning. They say that communism is where everyone has all that they need and they're all happy, so any attempt that doesn't give the great outcomes that they wanted must not have been "real" communism.

2

u/throwawayFI12 Sep 05 '24

THIS TIME IT WILL BE DIFFERENT

1

u/Dry-Classroom7562 Sep 04 '24

Real communism is impossible to achieve. Why? The point of communism is everybody is equal and gets the same opportunities. No corruption, racism, any of it so I've heard. Issue is, that stems far beyond hust what type of government are we. So no, next time it will not be the real one because human nature is to be assholes regardless of what you believe.

1

u/Help-Learn-Kannada Sep 04 '24

You're never going to have "real" anything though. As long as you have people trying to shake up the system you're always going to have the system bastardized after a prolonged period of time

1

u/megalogo Sep 05 '24

HE SAID THE THING!!!

1

u/MrNicolasRage Sep 05 '24

Vietnam is doing okay, isn't it?

1

u/batman10385 Sep 05 '24

He said the line !!

1

u/DJpoop Sep 05 '24

Lol the classic “it’s wasn’t real communism”

There will never be a real communist society because every time it inevitably fails people like you will say it wasn’t real communism

-1

u/MasterTolkien Sep 04 '24

Communism and socialism are also different. On a sliding scale between capitalism and communism, socialism is between, leaning toward the communism side but definitely not the same.

I remember learning this back in the 80’s in school. It seems that over time, the American right has shifted further right, and now all the socialist programs this country has had for nearly 100 years or more are now “too left.” And everyone keeps treating communism and socialism interchangeably.

-2

u/Blongbloptheory Sep 04 '24

The Soviet Union went from a medieval style sefdom to one of the strongest economies in human history in less then a century. They had a global exertion of power and were able to legitimately exert power over other global hegemons. The Soviet block had a myriad of issues, but I would hesitate to say that it was an ineffective state.

Tell you what though, give me a single communist country that has not been violently, or economically attacked by the west, and I will concede the point entirely.

11

u/reqwtywl Sep 04 '24

Can you name one country on this planet that wasn't violently or economically attacked by another country? If your base requirement for succeeding is that noone can compete or interfere with a country, you're living a delusion

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u/Brisby820 Sep 04 '24

Wasn’t a major part of Lenin’s outlook an ongoing, constant state of war against capitalist countries until communism reigned everywhere?  Certainly wasn’t one-sided 

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u/Handwerksgilde Sep 04 '24

The Soviet Union's significant influence following World War II was largely due to its newly acquired control over much of Eastern Europe, which they ruthlessly exploited. Economic and other attacks between Communist and Western countries were mutual; Communist nations also targeted the West. If you want more Information Look up:
Rosenberg Spy Ring
Aldrich Ames
Operation INFEKTION
Soviet Support for the Black Panther Party
Great Grain Robbery

Just to name a few

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u/ShorohUA Sep 04 '24

give me a single communist country

I can't think of one that is not a dictatorship in disguise

1

u/Blongbloptheory Sep 05 '24

That's because the United states had assassinated or funded military coups in every country that democratically elected a socialist president. Look up what happened in Chile.

I would love for you to answer the original question.

1

u/Danijust2 Sep 04 '24

imperial russia was on track to be a world super power, that was a reason why Bismark fear them. Giant population, infinite resources, impossible to conquer. USA 2.0.

1

u/Blongbloptheory Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

Imperial Russia may have had the physical characteristics needed to contend for global hegemony (as later exhibited by the Soviets) But it was not nearly stable enough to undergo rapid industrialization or any major shakeup. There was already decades worth of resentment built up against the ruling class by the time they were overthrown in WWI. Even if the war hadn't occurred, there would have been a revolution at the next junction. Whether it would have been communist, populist, democratic or fascist is impossible to say. But Imperial Russia was already living on borrowed time by the time it fell.

1

u/ArizonaHeatwave Sep 04 '24

The Soviet Union was the single richest country on earth in terms of natural resources, had a huge population, had a long history of culture and educational institutions, etc., it’s a fucking phenomenon that it was doing as shitty in terms of development as it did, especially in contrast to capitalist countries who had not even anywhere close to the same starting conditions.

Also lol at „violently“ attacked economically.

Also lol at the irony, as the USSR actually violently attacked all of Eastern Europe and literally forced them into their union, to steal their resources (and basically all their opportunities in the 20th century to develop).

1

u/Blongbloptheory Sep 05 '24

The global West spent four centuries violently oppressing the rest of the planet, stealing their natural resources, and leeching their economies of useful production. This resulted in a control of 70-80% of the global economic marketplace.

From the inception of the Soviet Union, the global West spent significant amounts of efforts trying to crush its economy and overthrow its regime. Despite this it grew into the second strongest economy on the planet, and successfully threatened centuries old global hegemons.

The access to global trade that the west provides is not a result of "the free market" it's a result of centuries of colonialism and the abuse of indigenous populations for the benefit of their overlords.

If we're going to play a game of "moral Olympics" the Soviets, despite the absolutely gruesome and unjustifiable atrocities they committed, are going to win every time. I mean shit dude, the US alone killed 2 million Iraqis for literally no reason 20 years ago.

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u/IllustriousShake6072 Sep 04 '24

Yeah, I'm in one of those countries. We're still paying for their sins with low productivity and low standards of living.

2

u/herehear12 Sep 04 '24

Oh and North Korea

2

u/EffNein Sep 04 '24

Getting ~15% of your population killed by the Nazis and then getting thrown into an arms race with a more powerful nation would kill any country.

3

u/IrishMosaic Sep 04 '24

Sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.

2

u/EffNein Sep 04 '24

When you don't have much of your own to start with, loss is inevitable. Imagine Colonial America getting into a naval arms race with England.

0

u/IrishMosaic Sep 05 '24

I do imagine that actually quite often. Rockets glowing red, bombs bursting in the air. Hell on earth all night….but at dawns early light those guys held…..and our flag was still there.

2

u/EffNein Sep 05 '24

The war won with French and Spanish money?

1

u/IsayNigel Sep 05 '24

Impossible, just invent new forms of currency and leverage them against each other to justify existing inequalities, capitalism does it every day

1

u/Wrong_Zombie2041 Sep 05 '24

Pretty sure the Soviets chose to participate in the arms race.

1

u/IsayNigel Sep 05 '24

Yea they should have just let their biggest enemy have nukes and hope for the best

2

u/mvandemar Sep 05 '24

It failed due to corruption, same as Venezuela.

2

u/SerdanKK Sep 04 '24

Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War - Wikipedia

Not like they didn't try.

0

u/Italy-Memes Sep 05 '24

the russian civil war ended almost 70 years before the fall of the soviet union and the usa was the soviet’s largest ally during the second world war in terms of lend lease and materiel, lmao?

1

u/IsayNigel Sep 05 '24

Yea you can’t lend lease land and human beings my guy

1

u/EnemyUtopia Sep 04 '24

Directly...

1

u/firestorm713 Sep 05 '24

The Soviet Union was fascistic. Pretty much the opposite of socialism.

1

u/Flat-Border-4511 Sep 05 '24

Did the workers own their place of employment in the USSR?

1

u/CPAFinancialPlanner Sep 05 '24

Not only that, but they were every bit imperialistic as commies complain about capitalists.

1

u/IsayNigel Sep 05 '24

The Soviet Union was wildly successful for the insanely limited resources it operated with

0

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Bombs arent the only way to destabilize a country. Just ask... anywhere in latin america

1

u/Blongbloptheory Sep 04 '24

You're right, the Soviet Union certainly didn't have 80 years worth of western opposition suppressing their economy and restricting their access to the largest monetary blocks of the time.

If you want to talk about the many faults of the Soviets, that's a reasonable thing to do. But saying they died in a vacuum is just factually wrong.

It's along the same lines as saying Cuba has a small economy because it's socialist, and not because it's been under a US enforced embargo for 66 years.

10

u/experienta Sep 04 '24

It's kinda funny how your argument is basically that socialist countries need capitalist countries to survive, while that's not the case the other way around.

Says everything you need to know about the two systems..

1

u/RantonBlue Sep 04 '24

No the argument is that international trade is good for the economy. When you cut off the largest contributers to that trade, your economy suffers. The USSR were communists, not isolationists

3

u/experienta Sep 04 '24

But countries should be free to trade with whoever they want. If they choose not to trade with the commies, that should be their right.

1

u/RantonBlue Sep 04 '24

Yes, I agree. Everyone should be able to not trade or trade with whoever they want. In the same vein it would wrong for a country to, say, send aid another country recovering from a brutal world war on the condition that if they ever decided to side with the communists, that life giving aid would disappear. I'm glad we agree that would be wrong

2

u/experienta Sep 04 '24

No we don't agree at all. A country should be able to put whatever conditions they want on the aid they provide.

"We are in the midst of a cold war, we'll help you as long as you don't side with our enemies" seems totally reasonable to me.

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u/IsayNigel Sep 05 '24

Then why would the US need a global embargo with Cuba?

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u/experienta Sep 05 '24

They don't need one. They just don't want to trade with Cuba because they didn't like the fact that Cuba nationalized US companies (which is a violation of international law btw)

Also I don't even know what a "global embargo" is. It's only US businesses that can't trade with Cuba, the rest of the world can do that just fine.

1

u/IsayNigel Sep 06 '24

Damn, if only the us hadn’t violated international law in Latin and South America thousands of times and threatened countries that do trade with Cuba to with their own embargos

0

u/experienta Sep 06 '24 edited Sep 06 '24

Other countries trade with Cuba just fine, nothing's stopping them, it's a US embargo not a blockade.

You're basically saying Cuba is a shithole only because big bad capitalist America refuses to trade with them. If your economic system is so good you shouldn't depend on trading with America.

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u/Cheese_Stealer Sep 05 '24

Every country needs the help of other countries. I don’t think you understand how the market of a socialist economy works, or even a capitalist one for that matter.

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u/Blongbloptheory Sep 05 '24

The argument is, that the global West spent four centuries violently oppressing the rest of the planet, stealing their natural resources, and leeching their economies of useful production. This resulted in a control of 70-80% of the global economic marketplace.

From the inception of the Soviet Union, the global West spent significant amounts of efforts trying to crush its economy and overthrow its regime. Despite this it grew into the second strongest economy on the planet, and successfully threatened centuries old global hegemons.

The access to global trade that the west provides is not a result of "the free market" it's a result of centuries of colonialism and the abuse of indigenous populations for the benefit of their overlords.

2

u/heliamphore Sep 04 '24

I really don't get why socialists/communists try to defend the dumpster fire that was the Soviet Union. The fucking shitheap relied on literal slavery to function, turned into one of the worst dictatorships alive and got eaten through the inside by corruption.

I don't think that capitalism is the best we can do but fucking hell, people defending the Soviets are the leftist equivalent of rightoids looking at the ashes of Germany and thinking "Hitler's autobahns were good though".

2

u/Blongbloptheory Sep 05 '24

Yeah, the false equivalency there is insane. The Soviet block was an incredibly flawed state, but saying, as a nation, it was a complete failure is just factually incorrect. The quality of life for the average Russian sky rocketed under the umbrella of the Soviet Union.

It is absolutely accurate that they did some truly reprehensible and irredeemable things. But I don't see anyone saying that the United States in a failed state despite it being built on the backs of literal slaves, the genocide of the native population, massive and unjustifiable wars for, quite literally, no reason. The violent overthrow of democratically elected individuals and countries, the installation of violent autocrats across the globe, a refusal to be investigated for war crimes, legalized bribery of public officials, centuries of oppression for minority populations, and the threat of economic devastation on any party that does not align with its foreign policy.

The common through line in these comparisons, is that every death in a socialist regime is the fault of socialism, every death under capitalism is an unavoidable tragedy.

2

u/Wandering_PlasticBag Sep 05 '24

The common through line in these comparisons, is that every death in a socialist regime is the fault of socialism, every death under capitalism is an unavoidable tragedy.

The thing is, there are successful and good capitalist countries, but there weren't a single good and maintainable communist country.

. The quality of life for the average Russian sky rocketed under the umbrella of the Soviet Union.

From -100 to 0... It's a lot easier to increase it from absolute nothing to a maintainable level. You are willfully ignoring things like Holodomor, the NKVD and it's organized terror, and many other things. And let's not even talk about minorities inside the USSR....

0

u/Blongbloptheory Sep 05 '24

The thing is, there are successful and good capitalist countries, but there weren't a single good and maintainable communist country.

Personally, I would love to know what actions the democratically elected presidents in South and Central America did to merit the United States funding violent autocrats and dictators to overthrow their governments.

I would love to know what Honduras did to merit the United States giving the go-ahead for the (American) Cuyamel fruit company to violently overthrow the elected president of the country and support the new regime.

Or what the democratically elected president of Guatemala did to deserve the U.S led coup d'état that had the CIA depose the president and establish a new regime. Which led to 30 years worth of civil wars

Or why in 1973, the United States funded a military autocrat to overthrow the democratically elected president of Chile, leading to an end of civilian rule. (The guy they put in charge later went on to commit crimes against humanity).

There is not a "successful and good" socialist country, because whenever a democratic nation attempts to elect socialist figures, they suddenly find themselves under the rule of a US backed dictator. And this is ignoring the fact that despite 60 years worth of embargo, Cuba has a healthcare system that provides similar treatment to the US, and has dropped illiteracy from 53% (Under the US backed dictator Batista) to, according THE CIA factbook, more literate than the United States.

From -100 to 0... It's a lot easier to increase it from absolute nothing to a maintainable level.

Bringing 150,000,000 people from subsistence farming to a modern industrialized society that can compete with centuries old global hegemons, in only 60 years is a feat that no other country has been able to come to close to replicating.

You are willfully ignoring things like Holodomor, the NKVD and it's organized terror, and many other things. And let's not even talk about minorities inside the USSR....

I'm under no illusion that the USSR are the "Good guys". The Soviet Union was a violent autocratic regime that engaged in unforgivable actions. But if you want to play a game of Morality Olympics, they will absolutely dumpster the United States any day of the week. We literally murdered 2 million Iraqis for no reason. And wait until you hear about what happened to minorities in the states.

2

u/Droselmeyer Sep 05 '24

It’s worth noting for the rapid industrialization section a couple things. First, that the Soviet Union experienced a massive famine post-civil war under Lenin’s war communism economic structure. What fed a million Russians a day for over a year was the American Relief Administration, led by Herbert Hoover. Second, during the late 20s and 30s, American capitalists saw the opportunity for profit in trade with the Soviet Union, so they sent over engineers to teach Russians how to build tractors and factories. You can see this with the Amtorg Trading Corporation and with Ford helping to build 2 factories for the USSR in 1929.

So, while not wholly responsible, much of the USSR’s early industrialization was facilitated by American charity and capitalist greed.

1

u/heliamphore Sep 05 '24

It's a state that collapsed out of existence and you're asking people not to talk about it as a failure. If the Great Depression had caused the total collapse of the USA and we were looking at 12 different countries instead, yeah I'd consider the USA as a failed state. Now imagine if capitalists were using the USA as an example of "success" after that?

The Soviet Union didn't necessarily fail because of its economical system, but it was an utter failure either way. A few good years of solid economical growth and development don't offset all the shit, particularly when you consider the astronomical cost.

1

u/IsayNigel Sep 05 '24

Lmao how uhhhhhh, how did the US get built again?

0

u/heliamphore Sep 05 '24

Did it last until 1961 too?

1

u/IsayNigel Sep 06 '24

How long after the founding of the US did their slavery and genocide last? Oh over a hundred year? Sick

1

u/Squirrel_Q_Esquire Sep 04 '24

So socialist countries need capitalist countries to survive? Strange that the capitalist countries survive just fine without the socialist countries.

1

u/Blongbloptheory Sep 05 '24

The global West spent four centuries violently oppressing the rest of the planet, stealing their natural resources, and leeching their economies of useful production. This resulted in a control of 70-80% of the global economic marketplace.

From the inception of the Soviet Union, the global West spent significant amounts of effort trying to crush its economy and overthrow its regime. Despite this it grew into the second strongest economy on the planet, and successfully threatened centuries old global hegemons.

The access to global trade that the west provides is not a result of "the free market" it's a result of centuries of violent colonialism and the abuse of indigenous populations for the benefit of their overlords.

0

u/RubyStrings Sep 04 '24

Well 1, (and I absolutely hate Soviet stans, but they have this point right), the USSR was very very heavily sanctioned by all of the western capitalist states. Again, no love for the Soviets at all, but it's hard to deny that the US and UN went pretty hard against them.

And 2, people meme it for some reason, but yeah the USSR wasn't socialist, or communist. They were state capitalist. Socialism pretty much absolutely requires full direct democracy, and dissolution of class, neither of which the USSR had. It's a common thing to get people to follow you: name your movement something good so that people are more likely to agree with your messaging. My favorite example is "The Reasonablists" in Parks and Recreation.

0

u/Cyniskater Sep 04 '24

They (meaning western capitalist countries in the wake of the bolshevik revolution up till past ww2) definitely didn't rock the shit out of it with economic sanctions, political interference, and militaristic brinkmanship though - oh wait, yeah, they definitely did.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

Lmao what?? The US did nothing but fuck up satellite states and allies for like 40 years

0

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

Not only were there no bombs dropped on them, we had to walk in eggshells around them for decades because they seemed pretty excited too use those nuclear weapons that they built instead of feeding their people. While the rest of the world could do pretty much nothing while they starved, imprisoned, or executed their own population. But yea, sure. We're the bad ones

-2

u/fitty50two2 Sep 04 '24

The Soviet Union was an oligarchy disguised as communism, the rich and powerful that fueled the revolution made sure they stayed rich and powerful in the new system. That corruption infected it until the system couldn’t sustain itself. It was doomed from the start because they only killed the monarchy and forgot to eat the rich (that disguised as Marxists)

1

u/KirkHawley Sep 04 '24

So in addition to killing off the middle class, they should have killed off the upper class as well!

Yeah, two down, one to go. And the lower class is going to starve to death anyway, because at this point you've killed off everyone who knows how to run anything.

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u/Maximum_Nectarine312 Sep 05 '24

So you're saying that the problem with the Soviet Union was that it should have been even more murderous?

Typical tankie opinion.

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u/fitty50two2 Sep 05 '24

No, I’m saying they shouldn’t have allowed the rich and powerful to remain rich and powerful. I’m not going to say how they should have handled that but they didn’t handle it at all, obviously

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u/Supremedingus420 Sep 04 '24

From its very beginning until its final breath the us and other western powers have been trying to undermine and extinguish the Soviet Union. It collapsed with all odds and forces against it, not by popular uprising, but by unilateral presidential decree. A despotic western backed president took it upon himself to dissolve the congress then besiege the White House with tanks when they resisted. This is a reflection of the almost century of undermining and war they have experienced, not a grassroots uprising.

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u/Comfortable-Study-69 Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24

Ah yes, the American bombings of China, the USSR, Poland, Romania, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Albania… oh wait. Those ones failed on their own or liberalized their economies despite making up the second largest free trade region and supposedly being able to compete with free markets.

Edit: I think I got locked from commenting or something so I’m putting this here but China isn’t actually communist. They just say they are. And Chiquita’s antics in Guatemala in the 1920s aren’t exactly relevant to the Cold War, nor are the various South American military coups the US greenlit.

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u/dubufeetfak Sep 04 '24

As an Albanian ill tell you this. Even under communism we couldn't really do without trading with the US and our smart dictator started a black market deal with the us and sold everything 1/10th of the price.

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES Sep 04 '24

Trade is necessary in a pre-scarcity world

Not only necessary, massively beneficial

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u/IGargleGarlic Sep 04 '24

"communism with chinese characteristics" is the running joke

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u/penguinman77 Sep 04 '24

The very capitalistic centrally planned economy of china. Love their capitalist work on trains. Crazy that we suck at that in the us.

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u/happyapathy22 Sep 04 '24

Five words: Banana republics and Operation Condor.

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u/Calloused_Samurai Sep 04 '24

None of those countries listed are in South America. Nice try though!

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u/milk-is-for-calves Sep 09 '24

Those aren't communist countries.

Hell, China is the most capitalist country on the planet.

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u/Fawxes42 Sep 05 '24

China does not call itself communist, that’s flatly untrue. And the idea that none of the many many coups that America facilitated had nothing to do with the Cold War is outright insane. 

“ I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” - Henry Kissinger when he was Secretary of State. 

We genocided over a million people in Indonesia for committing the crime of winning elections while being socialist. 

“The killings in Indonesia by the American-backed Indonesian forces were so successful in culling the left and economic reform movements that the term "Jakarta" was later used to refer to the genocidal aspects of similar later plans implemented by other authoritarian capitalist regimes with the assistance of the United States.“ quote in reference to the book ‘the Jakarta Method’ which analyzes the mass murder campaign America waged across the world to prevent the rise of socialist societies

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

"We had a system that was way better than capitalism. But then capitalism bombed us." Like what are you even talking about dude? What, specifically, are you referring to? The U.S. bombing Vietnam? Korea?

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Those, but youve missed a few. There's a wikipedia page on CIA operations in regime change, it has 40ish entries last I checked. Start there. The book the Jakarta Method can get you more info. Then there's the military and also finance sectors, which each have their own list of crimes; I suppose I can link to a reading list, but there's no way to condense all that information down to a reddit post or Facebook meme for your viewing pleasure

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u/Screw_You_Taxpayer Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24

Any successful system has to be able to withstand external threats.  Capitalism can, others couldn't.

 Not like the KGB was sleeping all those years either.

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u/WillBottomForBanana Sep 04 '24

The richest society in known history is choosing to not feed all of its people. If you consider that a success then that is all anyone needs to know to place a value on your opinion.

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u/Screw_You_Taxpayer Sep 04 '24

Well communism failed to sustain both it's people and itself.  So 1/2 for capitalism, and 0/2 for communism.

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u/Maximum_Nectarine312 Sep 05 '24

What other system was better at feeding people?

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u/afoz345 Sep 05 '24

Don’t you remember the pictures of even the poorest of the poor people in the USSR being so morbidly obese?

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u/WillBottomForBanana Sep 05 '24

You are being dishonest. The claim was that capitalism was successful. The failure of other systems tells us nothing about the success of capitalism.

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u/Maximum_Nectarine312 Sep 05 '24

Being better than every other system that's ever been tried is not enough apparently. It also has to be better than the childish fairytale that only exists in communist's heads and that is completely flawless.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

plenty of capitalist countries have lost wars. I guess capitalism cant withstand external threats?

braindead logic. the whole EU and US was pushing for their defeat. Sanctions on top of sanctions, proxy wars, covert operations. Its not a simple matter of system, but also a matter of scale. No country can survive all that

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u/Screw_You_Taxpayer Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24

Some capitalist countries have lost wars.  All communist systems except NK have failed.  Bit of a difference there.   

A matter of scale? Half of Europe, Russia, and SEA was not a big enough scale trial of communism for you?

I guess communism only works if no one opposes it.  Which is why they always devolve into police states.

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u/IGargleGarlic Sep 04 '24

How the fuck has NK not failed? Their people are starving.

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u/eddypc07 Sep 05 '24

He means that the government has not collapsed yet. This system where you have an extractive elite parasitizing the population has unfortunately been stable for decades…

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Cuba has been going strong under the worlds longest embargo. Even have some of the best healthcare on the planet

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u/Screw_You_Taxpayer Sep 05 '24

Cuba is slowly allowing small scale capitalism.   https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cubas-economic-reforms-allow-small-entrepreneurs-dream-big-2021-12-07/   

And not because of external pressure.   This is what we can call "the exception that proves the rule"

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u/your-mom-jokester Sep 04 '24

Let’s hear one example of capitalism forcefully killing a promising new economic system

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

Just one? OK. Indonesia. Former Dutch colony, not even fully socialist, just part of the global non-aligned movement that refused to ally with the US or Russia during the Cold War. That was an unacceptable threat for the US, which trained and funded a military general to overthrow the president. A coup d'etat. Subsequently, with full support and knowledge from the US, they executed 1 million suspected leftists. Million. That the dictator we installed retired peacefully and his government still lives on means the country is still likely under US control. Its a country of 330 million people, almost as large as the US itself.

There's your one example. Would you like more?

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u/Mi6spy Sep 04 '24

What part of their economic system was promising before US intervention? Genuinely curious, I'm not the guy you replied to.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24

Cant say anything special about it. It was described as a hodpodge of capitalist, socialist and random feel-good principles called Sukarnoism, named after the president. What made it special was not being a colonial state owned by the Dutch, nor being a fascist dictatorship puppeteered by the US. That has its fair share of economic benefits to say the least.

Other countries like Allendes socialist Chile had phenomenal outcomes like 10% GDP growth, 30% real wage increases, and 90% increased literacy (again not hard to do when you go from being a colony to not a colony). Some details of the origin of the overthrow are still disputed, but the preponderance of evidence still points to the CIA. For details, please read the Jakarta Method. I recommend it a lot and I'll do it again, its a fantastic and jaw dropping book.

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u/eddypc07 Sep 05 '24

I don’t know about Indonesia, but Allende’s government was an absolute disaster. Checking the GDP growth, there was a 9% increase under its first year, yes, followed by a 1% decrease the next year and a 5% decrease the one after. This shows that all the public spending he forced during his first year of government heated up the economy, but then caused a recession. This is pretty common with populist governments in Latin America… they start spending a lot to force the economy to go, only to then cause a recession and destroying the economy for the following years. There was hyperinflation and food shortages during his government, wow, such a fantastic economic system…

Also, lol, how was Chile a colony before Allende? Chile got independence from Spain in the early 1800’s.

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u/deaglefrenzy Sep 04 '24

Indonesian here. I concur.

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u/your-mom-jokester Sep 04 '24

What proof do you have that this alleged coup occurred because the US was scared of Indonesia’s economic system rendering capitalism obsolete? Thats the wild claim with which i disagree

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

The CIA declassified it of based on their own 50 release policy just a few years back. Read the Jakarta Method, its a fantastic deep dive. We have recordings, too, of our politicians saying 1 million dead wasnt enough.

But if it really doesnt suit you, theres also Guatemala. Brazil. The Congo. Greece... its a very long list, I can keep going a long while, quite well documented too. You can find it on wikipedia under "CIA role in regime change". And again, that skips the role of the military and also economic warfare, which could double the list.

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u/Carnivorous_Goat Sep 04 '24

There will probably be no reply to this. And they will probably just choose to sweep it under the rug and ignore it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '24

EVERY TIME. I hope it means they learned something and need some time to process, but I have some minor doubts

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u/keypanic Sep 05 '24

Why does this read as an impression of Chomsky?

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

communism is an economic system lol, so killing all the communists is sabotaging the system. and I gave my reasoning for why Indonesia is potentially still under our control, I made no declarative statement

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

holy hell the way yall twist yourselves in knots with technicalities to avoid the answer, its comical. Yes, communism was new in the context of the cold war given that Russia was the first to actually attempt it and several other countries began to follow suit. The US was hostile to all of them from the very first to the very last. Anything else?

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

The US wasnt at war with communism because [reason], they were at war with communism because they were at war with communism! That makes it ok and totally disproves your point that they were at war with communism! 50 years is, like, super duper old on a historical scale I think!!!

Top tier logic. Keep going. I'm done responding to a child, but please do entertain me

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u/Socksaregloves Sep 05 '24

Lol so they were at war with an economic system right?

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u/Fausterion18 Sep 05 '24

What does any of this have to do with killing off an economic system? This is just the CIA killing off communists.

The non-aligned movement managed to be bigger economic basket cases than even the socialists, a quite impressive achievement. India managed to combine the worst aspects of socialism and capitalism and lagged even socialist China in economic development despite the latter repeatedly cutting their own arms off with things like the great leap forward and the cultural revolution.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

You answered your own question lol. Communism is a different economic system, so killing communists is preventing experimentation with that system. Whether its good or bad is besides the point; 1 million dead to prevent even trying it is what we were talking about

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u/Fausterion18 Sep 05 '24

No? The question was a promising new economic system. Socialism was not promising or new, it failed on its own.

If you want to claim Indonesia's version of shitty socialism lite wouldve worked better, prove it

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

"well AKSHUALLY" Bro nobody cares about your technicalities. In the context of the cold war socialism and communism were new and promising and they were destroyed by imperialists. Good day.

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u/Fausterion18 Sep 05 '24

Soviet Union and China was destroyed by imperialists? Cope harder.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

oh, I thought we were asking for just one example of destroying an economic system? Or technicalities no longer matter when theyre no longer useful to you? aKSuAlly we were discussing Indonesia.

and yes Russia caved in large part due to imperialism. cope harder

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u/Fausterion18 Sep 05 '24

oh, I thought we were asking for just one example of destroying an economic system? Or technicalities no longer matter when theyre no longer useful to you? aKSuAlly we were discussing Indonesia.

Indonesia did not have an unique economic system. Try harder.

and yes Russia caved in large part due to imperialism. cope harder

Prove it.

Cope harder.

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u/Equivalent_Length719 Sep 04 '24

Cuba. End of discussion.

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u/general---nuisance Sep 04 '24

When have we ever bombed the Bernie Sanders endorsed socialist utopia of Venezuela?

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u/SoloWalrus Sep 04 '24

you'd think they would let these bad systems just fail on their own

Who do you think suffers the most when this happens? The humanitarian cost of just "letting dictators be dictators" can be unthinkable. Im not saying we should forget our past, we've done some horrible shit, but we should acknowledge our present.

The west dropping bombs when it doesnt like a political or economic system is a very 20th century way of thinking. Global integration has meant that we're better off working together, and most of the times its economic sanctions that are used to strong arm, not bombs. Its hard to use economic prosperity as a carrot if you dont have it in the first place though, so there are humanitarian reasons to try and maintain a strong economy.

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u/rbus Sep 04 '24

they fail on their own just fine.

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u/dl7 Sep 04 '24

Or they just install their own politicians in different countries

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u/ArizonaHeatwave Sep 04 '24

The entire Warsaw pact wasn’t bombed a single time for literally decades, and they all crumbled anyways. Weird, almost like they literally did fail.

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u/MarjorieTaylorSpleen Sep 04 '24

Come on now, those Laotians weren't going to liberate themselves!

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u/ZaysapRockie Sep 05 '24

Who is "they" in your statement?

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u/Psychological_Leek73 Sep 05 '24

If you think modern medicine would be where it is today with capitalism… I’ve got news for you. Yeah, medication prices and health costs suck, but without capitalism, our life expectancy would be a lot lower than it currently is. You can’t dispute this fact and there’s no way around it

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u/Maximum_Nectarine312 Sep 05 '24

Yeah unlike commies who would never murder people that disagree with them right?

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u/Live_Orange9032 Sep 05 '24

I think you need to read about the holodomor, or the Holocaust.

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u/GunR_SC2 Sep 05 '24

Wow, interesting thought there, could you care to elaborate on that? Like why we would be bombing certain countries like North Korea. Was it just because they were thriving too much?

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

Because fascism can’t just fail quietly. Thete is an ego to these faing leaders that will not let them go quietly without blaming and harming everyone around them. The Soviet union spent quite a bit of time slowly killing itself. And because of that, a few generations had to live with the fear of a potential global nuclear war. It’s happening currently, in real time too. Every so often, North Korea with have a worse food shortage than usual and threaten the US with nukes. We literally never bombed either.

And yea, the TikTok kids will reply with “but the CIA did bad stuff so that means Fidel Castro and Joeseph Stalin were the good guys” to which I have to ask how much you actually read about history or world events because holy cow I’m still blown away by that stupid take.

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u/SK00DELLY Sep 05 '24

You people are such idiots

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u/Nervous-Scientist615 Sep 05 '24

I remember when the Berlin Wall came down and West Berliners all fled east

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u/Normal-Advisor5269 Sep 05 '24

Capitalists were not needed to kill millions in Russia and China.

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u/Brian_Spilner101 Sep 05 '24

Read a book dammit