Buenos Aires, Argentina — Thousands took to the streets of Argentina in the past few days to protest a series of economic decrees proposed by President Javier Milei. On December 20, Milei announced sweeping deregulations to Argentina’s economy, sparking backlash from opposition members and groups representing unemployed people. Riot police were dispatched at major protest […]
To be fair USSR after communism was leagues better than USSR before communism ever could have been. But it’s not exactly proving much pointing out that an extremely unequal authoritarian regime is worse than a more equal but still authoritarian regime.
I don’t think the comparison works anyway because this is a true example of exactly what most libertarians have wet dreams of, while with communism people try to use e.g. the USSR and PRC to discredit leftism as a whole (especially socialism) even though any leftist worth their salt would realize authoritarianism is bad and creates a dangerous hierarchy, which is why Marx and Engels specified their ideologies to be democratic.
I don’t think China succeeded because of communism. They succeeded because Rich Industrialists in the west did not want to share their success with ordinary people and hence shifted all their work to China where the government ensured a steady supply of cheap labour. Of course, this only worked because the Chinese population was so poor that what were considered bad wages in the west was significantly more money than they would get back home.
Now this kind of outsourcing of labour is what lead to countries coming out of poverty: what made them poor in the first place? Rampant colonialism by EU nations. You can see this in Africa, South America, Asia.
But what will Lemmy communists say when you point out USSR and China?
To be fair USSR after communism was leagues better than USSR before communism ever could have been. But it’s not exactly proving much pointing out that an extremely unequal authoritarian regime is worse than a more equal but still authoritarian regime.
I don’t think the comparison works anyway because this is a true example of exactly what most libertarians have wet dreams of, while with communism people try to use e.g. the USSR and PRC to discredit leftism as a whole (especially socialism) even though any leftist worth their salt would realize authoritarianism is bad and creates a dangerous hierarchy, which is why Marx and Engels specified their ideologies to be democratic.
Libertarian and communist aren’t the only political options if your education didn’t top out at ninth grade.
I measure a country’s success by the quantity of weapons they produce
I don’t think China succeeded because of communism. They succeeded because Rich Industrialists in the west did not want to share their success with ordinary people and hence shifted all their work to China where the government ensured a steady supply of cheap labour. Of course, this only worked because the Chinese population was so poor that what were considered bad wages in the west was significantly more money than they would get back home.
Now this kind of outsourcing of labour is what lead to countries coming out of poverty: what made them poor in the first place? Rampant colonialism by EU nations. You can see this in Africa, South America, Asia.