The Soviet Union was not under siege. That’s such a silly claim. The Soviet Union had direct influence over 1/3 of the planet at one point because they were all controlled by Soviet aligned Marxist states. They turned out as they did because Marxism is an inherently authoritarian ideology. There’s a reason why there’s isn’t a single example of a free and democratic Marxist state.
Something does need to change, but the solution to our current problems is properly regulated capitalism. Not some failed shitty ideology like Marxism. We need more competition in the markets, we need to break up monopolies, we need more government regulation to protect the environment, workers, and consumers, we need to remove money from politics, we need to allow big businesses to fail when they do, we need to remove the subsidies for massive corporations, and so on. These are simple reforms that would make massive differences.
You seem to be discounting the allied intervention in the civil war from 1918-1925, the white army, the effects of WW2 and the Nazi invasion, the cold war.
The same exact things could be said about Germany, expect Germany had it way worse and for longer… yet it didn’t turn out like the Soviet Union.
The ideology was and still is under attack from dissenters within the nation, as well as western capitalist nations that saw communism as a threat to “the free market”.
I don’t see the issue here. Shitty ideologies are going to get criticized and dissenters. Marxism murdered tens of millions and oppressed hundreds of millions, no shit people living under it are going to hate it. It’s also was in fact threatening the liberal democracies of the West, especially considering how Marxism is inherently imperialist as well (spread the revolution to rest of the world by any means to “liberate” the workers), so it made sense for the West to view as such.
Cuba seems to be managing pretty well in spite of a US invasion, and continued embargos.
In what universe is Cuba managing well? That place is quite literally the most authoritarian and oppressive regime in the entire western hemisphere.
The US foreign policy of the 1900’s included containing Communism, which led to us interfering in multiple civil wars (Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan) all to try and put a stop to communism.
The Soviet Union was doing the same exact thing. They toppled democratically elected government, they staged coups, they rigged elections and installed puppets, they started civil wars, they invaded countries, and they even helped commit genocides abroad. The idea that the cold war was one sided US rampage is just ignorant. Marxists, or Marxist adjacent, seem to have a certain type of amnesia that applies to any historical facts that contradict their brain dead views.
If it was such a threat, why didn’t the US just let those countries fail?
Geopolitical influence? The Soviet Union was threatening US security, and so it would make sense to limit their influence as much as possible. That’s geopolitics 101. Then again, the same exact thing applies to the Soviet Union. They tried so many times to get to cripple capitalist countries and have them turn Marxist, especially Western Europe… but they failed and instead Eastern Europe ditched Marxism the first chance they got and never looked back, why is that?
Why did the US intervene in all these communist countries, but let Fascist ones like Italy, Japan, and Nazi Germany get as far as they did?
The US literally invaded, destroyed, and rebuilt all three.
Why did they respect Fascists, but treat Communism as some sort of authoritarian evil?
The US didn’t respect either, they were both evil. The only difference was the fascist countries were weak and neutral towards the US while Marxist countries were hostile and supported by a superpower.
The US foreign policy was anti-communism. Communism was under siege by capitalists. Don’t you wonder how communism could have turned out if it wasn’t constantly being undermined by the entire western world?
It would’ve turned out the same exact way. It’s a flawed ideology to it’s core. Marxists will blame anything and everything but themselves. There’s no self reflection, there’s no genuine critique, there’s no sense of responsibility. Blaming the US, West, or whatever is not going to change reality. Your exact argument could be applied towards the US and the West because the Soviet Union had the same goals as the US and they used the same tactics. Yet the Marxist world as a whole collapsed and the capitalist world did not. Not only did the communist country collapse, but they all reverted to capitalism. Even the Marxist countries today like China and Vietnam adopted a form of capitalism to avoid collapse. It’s to time to face it, Marxism is an irredeemable ideology that has failed.
Hard disagree. The only reason we can maintain the way of life we have now is because we exploit the labor and goods in cheaper markets around the world. Without abusing poor markets, goods would be much more expensive.
This is a bunch of gibberish. There is no broad system of “abuse”, that’s just some myth Marxists made up to justify their economic illiteracy. When you take into account things like population size, education, currency’s purchasing power, cost of living, standards of living, government policies, amounts of existing industry, etc things start to make things why they are the way they are. Nobody is forcing Bangladesh or the Philippines to provide cheap textile factories. They choose to do them because they have nothing else. They have no industry, no economy, no infrastructure. In order for them to become more wealthy and prosperous, they need to start at the bottom and move their way up. They need compete on the global market to attract investment and business, and from there they’ll slowly but surely build out infrastructure, pass laws to protect workers, clean and protect the environment, establish industry, and raise their standards of living. That’s just how it works. Every country has been through it. Countries like the US and UK have already been through it long ago, countries like South Korea and China have just did it, countries like India and Bengladesh are going through it right now, and countries Ethiopia and the DRC are going to follow. These countries aren’t being put down by capitalism, they’re being brought up by it.
We could say, pay workers overseas the same rate that they are paid here - that would bring jobs home.
That’s stupid. Not only does it ignore the difference in economies, but those jobs are still going to stay there. Why would companies waste the money to build new factories here if the costs are the same? They might as well as just use the already established factories there. There is no economic advantage.
I would support something like that, but that’s also not in the interest of anyone in power, and would almost certainly lead to a lot of consumer goods becoming much more expensive.
A lot of people support the idea of having the things they buy come locally and from ethical companies… but most of the people who say such things don’t actually believe in what they say. In other words, they just say these things to virtue signal how much morally better they are than everybody else. There’s nothing stopping you from following your ideals right now. There are already plenty of companies that offer a host products and services that are made in your country or some allied country, they treat their employees ethically, and they would love nothing more than to have your support. All you have to do is pay that premium price and you would already be making a bigger contribution towards your ideal world then 99% of these people. You won’t be able to purchase every single thing from such companies, but you can at least do some research and avoid the unethical corporations as much as possible. If enough people follow such trends, then these corporations would be forced to adapt.
Government regulations under capitalism rarely have any teeth to them.
That entirely depends on the system and government. Unlike Marxism which is an inflexible and all encompassing ideology that tries to control every aspect of society, capitalism doesn’t really work like that. It’s more like a tool. It is as good as the ideology and system that uses it. Saudi Arabia, China, Finland, the US, and Argentina all have capitalist economies but they’re controlled by vastly different ideologies. Saudi Arabia has a government that incentivizes unethical practices, China has a government that intentionally look the other way, Argentina has a government that’s too incompetent to do anything, and the US has a system with flaws that prevent the government from passing the necessary legislation. Finland on the other hand, has a government that actually opposes unethical practices and has the ability pass legislation to ban them. While Finland isn’t a perfect country by any means, it prove to be an example that contradicts your claim. All these system have their pros and cons, and there’s nothing stopping people, at least in democratic countries, from reforming their system to adopt the good traits of other systems while getting rid of the bad traits. The issue here is political rather than economic. It isn’t inherent to capitalism.
Rich politicians overwhelmingly bend the knee to rich capitalists - they are often one in the same.
Not really, again, there are plenty of examples where that is not the case like Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, etc.
We need to stifle the need for infinite growth that is inherit to neoliberal capitalism. I’m not sure how you see that happening within a capitalist system.
There’s nothing inherently wrong from seeking indefinite growth, the issue comes wanting that growth to come at any cost, even if that growth comes to cause more problems in the long run. That is indeed an issue with the current adaptation of capitalism, however, it is the way it is because our current set of regulations and values incentivize such behavior and mentalities. There’s nothing preventing us from establishing a system of incentivizes that moves us away from what we have now and towards a system that’s more sustainable. Besides reforming the current system, that actually works and produces results, is a much better and much more pragmatic idea than tearing everything down and establishing a failed system under a failed ideology that has produced nothing but misery every time it has been tried.
The Soviet Union was not under siege. That’s such a silly claim. The Soviet Union had direct influence over 1/3 of the planet at one point because they were all controlled by Soviet aligned Marxist states. They turned out as they did because Marxism is an inherently authoritarian ideology. There’s a reason why there’s isn’t a single example of a free and democratic Marxist state.
Something does need to change, but the solution to our current problems is properly regulated capitalism. Not some failed shitty ideology like Marxism. We need more competition in the markets, we need to break up monopolies, we need more government regulation to protect the environment, workers, and consumers, we need to remove money from politics, we need to allow big businesses to fail when they do, we need to remove the subsidies for massive corporations, and so on. These are simple reforms that would make massive differences.
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The same exact things could be said about Germany, expect Germany had it way worse and for longer… yet it didn’t turn out like the Soviet Union.
I don’t see the issue here. Shitty ideologies are going to get criticized and dissenters. Marxism murdered tens of millions and oppressed hundreds of millions, no shit people living under it are going to hate it. It’s also was in fact threatening the liberal democracies of the West, especially considering how Marxism is inherently imperialist as well (spread the revolution to rest of the world by any means to “liberate” the workers), so it made sense for the West to view as such.
In what universe is Cuba managing well? That place is quite literally the most authoritarian and oppressive regime in the entire western hemisphere.
The Soviet Union was doing the same exact thing. They toppled democratically elected government, they staged coups, they rigged elections and installed puppets, they started civil wars, they invaded countries, and they even helped commit genocides abroad. The idea that the cold war was one sided US rampage is just ignorant. Marxists, or Marxist adjacent, seem to have a certain type of amnesia that applies to any historical facts that contradict their brain dead views.
Geopolitical influence? The Soviet Union was threatening US security, and so it would make sense to limit their influence as much as possible. That’s geopolitics 101. Then again, the same exact thing applies to the Soviet Union. They tried so many times to get to cripple capitalist countries and have them turn Marxist, especially Western Europe… but they failed and instead Eastern Europe ditched Marxism the first chance they got and never looked back, why is that?
The US literally invaded, destroyed, and rebuilt all three.
The US didn’t respect either, they were both evil. The only difference was the fascist countries were weak and neutral towards the US while Marxist countries were hostile and supported by a superpower.
It would’ve turned out the same exact way. It’s a flawed ideology to it’s core. Marxists will blame anything and everything but themselves. There’s no self reflection, there’s no genuine critique, there’s no sense of responsibility. Blaming the US, West, or whatever is not going to change reality. Your exact argument could be applied towards the US and the West because the Soviet Union had the same goals as the US and they used the same tactics. Yet the Marxist world as a whole collapsed and the capitalist world did not. Not only did the communist country collapse, but they all reverted to capitalism. Even the Marxist countries today like China and Vietnam adopted a form of capitalism to avoid collapse. It’s to time to face it, Marxism is an irredeemable ideology that has failed.
This is a bunch of gibberish. There is no broad system of “abuse”, that’s just some myth Marxists made up to justify their economic illiteracy. When you take into account things like population size, education, currency’s purchasing power, cost of living, standards of living, government policies, amounts of existing industry, etc things start to make things why they are the way they are. Nobody is forcing Bangladesh or the Philippines to provide cheap textile factories. They choose to do them because they have nothing else. They have no industry, no economy, no infrastructure. In order for them to become more wealthy and prosperous, they need to start at the bottom and move their way up. They need compete on the global market to attract investment and business, and from there they’ll slowly but surely build out infrastructure, pass laws to protect workers, clean and protect the environment, establish industry, and raise their standards of living. That’s just how it works. Every country has been through it. Countries like the US and UK have already been through it long ago, countries like South Korea and China have just did it, countries like India and Bengladesh are going through it right now, and countries Ethiopia and the DRC are going to follow. These countries aren’t being put down by capitalism, they’re being brought up by it.
That’s stupid. Not only does it ignore the difference in economies, but those jobs are still going to stay there. Why would companies waste the money to build new factories here if the costs are the same? They might as well as just use the already established factories there. There is no economic advantage.
A lot of people support the idea of having the things they buy come locally and from ethical companies… but most of the people who say such things don’t actually believe in what they say. In other words, they just say these things to virtue signal how much morally better they are than everybody else. There’s nothing stopping you from following your ideals right now. There are already plenty of companies that offer a host products and services that are made in your country or some allied country, they treat their employees ethically, and they would love nothing more than to have your support. All you have to do is pay that premium price and you would already be making a bigger contribution towards your ideal world then 99% of these people. You won’t be able to purchase every single thing from such companies, but you can at least do some research and avoid the unethical corporations as much as possible. If enough people follow such trends, then these corporations would be forced to adapt.
That entirely depends on the system and government. Unlike Marxism which is an inflexible and all encompassing ideology that tries to control every aspect of society, capitalism doesn’t really work like that. It’s more like a tool. It is as good as the ideology and system that uses it. Saudi Arabia, China, Finland, the US, and Argentina all have capitalist economies but they’re controlled by vastly different ideologies. Saudi Arabia has a government that incentivizes unethical practices, China has a government that intentionally look the other way, Argentina has a government that’s too incompetent to do anything, and the US has a system with flaws that prevent the government from passing the necessary legislation. Finland on the other hand, has a government that actually opposes unethical practices and has the ability pass legislation to ban them. While Finland isn’t a perfect country by any means, it prove to be an example that contradicts your claim. All these system have their pros and cons, and there’s nothing stopping people, at least in democratic countries, from reforming their system to adopt the good traits of other systems while getting rid of the bad traits. The issue here is political rather than economic. It isn’t inherent to capitalism.
Not really, again, there are plenty of examples where that is not the case like Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, etc.
There’s nothing inherently wrong from seeking indefinite growth, the issue comes wanting that growth to come at any cost, even if that growth comes to cause more problems in the long run. That is indeed an issue with the current adaptation of capitalism, however, it is the way it is because our current set of regulations and values incentivize such behavior and mentalities. There’s nothing preventing us from establishing a system of incentivizes that moves us away from what we have now and towards a system that’s more sustainable. Besides reforming the current system, that actually works and produces results, is a much better and much more pragmatic idea than tearing everything down and establishing a failed system under a failed ideology that has produced nothing but misery every time it has been tried.
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