• mindbleach
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    6 months ago

    ‘We’re only defending the imaginary ideal!’

    That’s not how words work. Things mean what they are used to mean.

    Y’all understand this perfectly when describing “capitalism.” That word becomes synecdoche for every level and aspect of modern reality. By definition, capitalism is only really the part where having money makes money, but nobody has any trouble understanding what you mean when you refer to its consequences and implications. Nor would you respect if libertarians split hairs about “corporatism.” Like oh, this isn’t capitalism, because it lacks X and Y and Z, which have never existed, so how dare you talk about bad things that actually happened.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      It’s more that anticommunists judge Socialist states by their inability to fulfill Communist ideals at the level of development AES countries are at, as though they exist in a perfectly frozen picture absent history and trajectory.

      • mindbleach
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        6 months ago

        Yeah sure dude, existing in a context is why people condemned police states.

        ‘People who don’t know the difference between these terms must be using the more-recognizable one as an oblique criticism of the gap between theory and practice’ is the most .ml take I have ever seen.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          Condemning the USSR and PRC for not achieving a global stateless, classless, moneyless society is ridiculous. This isn’t a gap between theory and practice, lol. Communism isn’t anarchism.

          • mindbleach
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            6 months ago

            … do you understand that criticism can come from outside your own belief set?

            • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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              6 months ago

              Yep, but I also understand what Communists actually advocate for and understand that countries building Communism should be judged like every society: with respect to trajectory, not as a snapshot.

              Communism isn’t a goal because it is stateless, classless, and moneyless. Rather, Communism is a goal because the process of getting there is to create a society benefitting all and directed for the working class, by the working class.