When I first joined Lemmygrad, I had the peace of knowing that everyone here is participating in good faith, unlike on reddit, which is full of liberals who will comment on everything just to get a reaction or a chauvinistic boner. The good faith here was a very welcoming thing, that even when I made a mistake users corrected me and gave me a second chance to rethink what I said, because they knew I wasn't here to troll and perhaps I was misguided or uneducated on a subject.
After the reddit refugee thing, you'd usually see them on communities that used to be popular on reddit that exist on Lemmygrad's instance (latestagecapitalism) or posts that got too popular, but now they shove themselves on every community here, even if its name was "LENINFANGIRLSCLUB1917" and had a picture of Lenin on every inch of it.
But now, since there's so many clueless liberals that came from reddit and don't know how to act, devaluate constructive discussions on for example if a theocratic force like Hamas should be supported against the Zionist entity or not, into arguments about whether the Zionist entity is a colony or not. nowadays if someone comments some shit like "communism doesn't work because of human nature." I legit wouldn't know if it's sarcastic or actual believers of that.
I feel this has a major negative impact on us and the community, it is harder for anyone old or new to participate here without being downvoted (idgaf about downvotes) or argue on whether Jeff Bezos eats children or not, and any new participants is instantly greeted with a death stare if they can't recite Das Kapital backwards in Hausi.
Anyhow, that was my rant, I personally believe that what we're seeing right now is just a wave caused by reddit, and liberals will either learn how to use Lemmy properly, or leave the site all together because they can't give comments gold awards. With all that I've said, I'm looking forward to the Hexbear federation horizon where we'll hopefully be dunking on losers together. <3
Thanks for the reply!
Isn't China ploughing forward with its own form of capitalist exploitation from year to year? Large companies are run by those who tow the party line and stay friendly with the right factions. Politicians and business leaders live in luxury, while the working class is exploited. Is Vietnam doing any better?
Efficient and robust (both in good measure) markets seem like a key to a competitive society. Free markets and capitalism are oft touted as a way to get this (ignoring the rescue-the-rich bailouts, cough). I wonder whether some future AI/ML tech may offer a non-violent path forward here. Any large scale viable alternative will have to hold its own against capitalist/other competition and deal with lots of spanners being thrown in the works. I suspect there'll be an element of evolution/survival of the fittest, if it goes this way.
These are great questions to ask in communism101. As a very good introductory article on the PRC, I can recommend this one:
The Long Game and Its Contradictions. Audiobook
And more here.
To answer your questions on China. it's long, but you can just put it on in the background and listen. There is a lot of good content on the subject in this video alone.
It's important to keep in mind that these countries were semi-feudal, mostly agrarian, and with little industrialization prior to their revolutions. Transitioning to mixed economies allowed them to participate in global trade in order to grow their productive forces more effectively. China plans to achieve socialism by 2050.
This is just not true. The USSR had a planned economy. With this, they eliminated inflation, the boom and bust cycle of market economies, unemployment, and were still able to grow at a rate faster than that of the USA during most of its existence.
Interesting! If they can swing it, especially peacefully, it could be a game changer. The potential is there.
On the USSR, I'm not convinced they hit the mark. Repression, black markets & corruption, mass starvation, eventual collapse etc. I'd be interested to learn more about their planned economy regardless.
I haven't read anything specifically on their planned economy, but if you'd like to analyze the various factors that led to the collapse of the USSR, Socialism Betrayed by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny is a very insightful read.