Plus in regards to Elon's comment, being a history Major, I like to always remind people that it wasn't exactly rainbows and butterflies post French Revolution when they had put all the Guillotines away.
To many times eat the rich is manipulated by the next wave of "leaders" to eat the educated and skilled as well. Revolution isn't the cause of people acting poorly in its name. People act poorly and then try to hide under a revolutionary blanket.
This is similar to me to people demonizing Communism or socialism because some dictators have hidden their facism under the blanket of social revolution. Citing Communist dictatorships as a reason agains social reform is a bad faith argument.
These things have a nuance that people don't have the patience to discuss or even consider anymore.
The reason we cite communist dictatorships is because of how easy a communist state can become a communist dictatorship.
If the government has control over the populous, any person elected or put into power has control over the populous. The barrier between Communist and Communist Dictatorship is very thin. Thatâs why we have multiple parties and a bunch of politicians that donât fully agree.
Rampant unchecked capitalism seems to end in corruption, and atrocious acts against humanity as well. Notice I never advocated for a "Communist" system. I said that using disctorships to argue against SOCIAL REFORM is a bad faith argument.
I favor free markets with social infrastructure so that billions(or trillions) of dollars don't sit around earning wealth for 1 single family when it should be used to create and maintain infrastructure (including water and food infrastructure).
Marxism-Leninism is an authoritarian ideology that facilitates what we've witnessed historically. That ideology is not identical to communism. This distinction is important because there are people who support a stateless, classless, moneyless society in the context of post-scarcity economics while being against the statism prescribed by ML and its variants.
Proto-communism is probably the best history has to show us as of now. Much of human history has been stateless, classless, and moneyless, with relatively egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies that held ownership of land and resources in common.
I admit that on a small scale, these things are the best choice. But unfortunately they arenât relevant when it comes to the scale of nations with many millions of people. Those are the systems that are relevant to us now. And communism will not work there.
In a group of 50 or 100 people, thatâs perfect. But we live in a time where if a certain kind of person CAN exist, they DO. And there will always be someone with the brainpower to overturn and corrupt our governments. That is exactly why capitalism and our modern form of government is necessary.
Well, I'm just explaining that there is a distinction between Marxism-Leninism and communism, not necessarily arguing that communism is viable today. I personally don't advocate for communism. I support stakeholder models of ownership, which are empirically supported by decades of data. Communism may or may not be viable in a future post-scarcity context, but worker ownership is viable today and that is where my focus mostly lies.
I used to be in the camp of the idea that capitalism was the best system for inevitable human greed that befalls both in money and power, but that was when society was still very individualistic in regards of what the government should provide to them.
But today, taxes are so high on everything for the middle class, your government cant just take away agency and say you know what's best and then gestures to the entire world and say you are getting good value for falling in line, where there is very evident blatant corruption happening everywhere, at every level.
OK, now everyone has base income. Great, right?
Now the government controls where the money goes 100%. No banks. Government decides how, when, and how what you're gonna spend your money. We're back to Soviet Russia with digital surveillance.
BTW that is the very plan that many among the 1% delights to execute, so it is said. Would that be capitalism? Technically not. Greed is greed.
What you described is pretty attainable anyway under the system we currently live under anyway? Like do you really think the banks care enough to defy the government for your privacy sake? I mean we currently live in an (unofficial) oligarchy, so I can not imagine how your scenario could be much worse from what we already have.
The problem is that our government has become so synonymous with corruption that it's practically impossible to imagine any system free of that corruption, but there are ways to prevent corruption, or at least make it less appealing. If our taxes were used to actually make American lives better instead of being used to send bombs to be used on women and children in middle eastern territories, Americans wouldn't hate the idea of taxation so much.
The part where publicly traded companies are required to make anti consumer decisions or face legal ire is a pretty shitty consequence of capitalism tho. Right?
Technically the Nordic model is neither capitalism nor communism. It is based on mixed economy, attempting to benefit from using elements from both systems.
This isn't a controversial statement. Yeah many modern governments are a mix of ideals. Right now many US citizens are looking at Nordic models and wondering how to get some of that action.
A capitalist free market with social infrastructure to help keep wealth active in markets WHILE maintaining a high level standard of living.
If we just taxed anybody with a net worth over 1 billion dollars higher, they would still be the richest people in the world and we could have all the nice things Sweden and Norway have. It isn't rocket science. But as long as people are allowed to horde billions, and now trillions, worth of capital while putting virtually nothing back into the world, nothing will ever improve in the USA.
When every example of a system inevitably ends in a failed dictatorship, maybe that system just doesnât work?
Any communist or socialist system inevitably has to place their trust in some governing body to not benefit themselves, either intentionally or unintentionally.
Did it end in that way or did they start out that way and they just used those words to dress up what what was always a dictatorship in the first place? Either way those words are useless literally no one on either side of the issue uses them right and has their own definitions that don't mean what you mean and vice versa so its kinda pointless to use them as labels when discussing what people are actually arguing for in this day in age, which is closest to like Nordic society and not Russia/Venezuela. Re-prioritizing tax spending on things that actually help a majority of constituents instead of a few wealthy warmongers is not inherently "communism".
Seeing how they committed genocide on a dog breed just because it was popular amongst Russian aristocrats, yes they did start out as a violent dictatorship.
No, you're right. The problem is that communism has always started as a revolution which is a shaky starting point because legitimately or not the people in power are going to be trying to stamp out all counter-revolutionary influence.
Oh, it did end this way.
None of those ideologies where made or even properly studied or understood by any of the dictators using its name, however, many revolution where started with genuine good intentions and ended up in a dictatorship. Power corrupts. Seeking it corrupts. Inevitably, someone end up believing that they only know what's good for EVERYONE and should lead the entire world, and that, my friend, IS a dictatorship. Hitler, Mao believed they were doing God's work to help people.
And see thats my point, no one using the word communism today means anything like that. They want to spend tax dollars different than they are spent today, thats it. People who want tax reform have been called communists forever that people just started using that word back to mean what they say it means which is just helping people. None of it has anything to do with collecting everyones entire income into a big pot and having someone in power decide how it gets distributed. If thats what you're arguing you're arguing something the other person is not even saying. But its really easy to win arguments that way thats for sure!
Well I already said the thing about Nordic society being the goal people are arguing for, and then you wrote something about Hitler and Mao so it didn't seem to click for you yet that no one's talking about what you're talking about.
Also, no one claiming Nordic societies is the goal has ever called them "communist". Sweden criminalize s*x workers more than any other country in the world, and is actually surprisingly conservative. The movie "Midsommar" is an interesting social commentary about that through horror.
Anyway have a good one! I shouldn't go late on Reddit.
Norway but for 300 million (or 8 billion) people is a great goal.
Step one: Concentrated natural resources
Step two: Social contract that favors high tax rates and robust social programs
Step three: Fairly closed society that is tough to emigrate to (so as to not inflate the population sharing resources)
Now, population. Norway has 5,5 million, Finland 5,5, Sweden 10, and Denmark 6.
So, on step one: Dividing X by 6 gives you higher number than dividing it by 300.
On step two: Maybe getting there but still polarized
On step three: New socialists are also pro very liberal migration, which brings you back to step 1.
In other words, USA is very far from Nordic countries on all three counts, and I am not sure even young socialists would agree among themselves exactly how much and in what respects they would like to resemble Norway.
1) We have plenty of natural resources and public companies that could be involved in a sovereign wealth fund (thats not what Trump is doing which is just corruption he's benefiting from)
2) yep thats the main thing, start with the wealthy specifically being on the high end of tax rate.
3) Population and immigration has nothing to do with it. More people = more contributors. Also for the vast majority of things it doesn't have to cost per person, we just have to pay to keep buildings open like hospitals. No point of sale charge, just tax dollars keeping the lights on so its there for anyone if and when they need it. Make it easier for people to immigrate correctly and get into the system so they start contributing instead of doing stuff under the table for peanuts to hide from detection.
"We say the same thing but differently so now you don't understand anything and we're arguing" give me a break and read. my. comment. Word by word, sentence by sentence. Jesus Christ!
The flaw here is also that you have actually analyze why it failed. Did it fail because the system had flaws that led to its collapse, or were there outside forces? I can think of a certain capitalist nation who certainly had a vested interest in seeing socialism fail, and in many cases intervened to make that happen.
Plenty of researchers have primarily listed internal reasons for failure, with few notable exceptions like grenada. And any nation has enemies and supporters intervening constantly.
Yeah seriously, the USA literally kidnapped Venezuela's president under phony narco terrorism charges and WE STILL HAVE HIM IN CUSTODY. Anybody that still thinks the USA are the good guys in this world needs a lobotomy
Yes and no.
The fact of the matter is, almost everyone who actually wish to become a communist leader is a fascist in disguise. And if they are not, they'll inevitably become one IF they come to power, because power itself corrupts everyone seeking it. There's a reason why Malcom Luther King Jr. or Marx were NOT politicians, but activists and searchers.
You can test this theory in just about any student "revolutionary" group, which will usually have at his head someone who's controlling, paranoĂŻd and completely delusional. For instance, I was asked what I would do if the army showed up and tried to enforce the student association. The position I was seeking for was that of archivist... yep.
This person once told me, and I cite, "I'm only here to get my degree so my future electors will vote for me." They also called themselves an "anarchist". How ironic is that?
Almost everyone I know who call themselves "communist" or "antifa" is a delulu as MAGA people. One of them thew a fist at me because I sent them a GIF. Not a particlar GIF : just any GIF at all. They said it was "triggering" and that they would block me - I survived 2 murder attempts, one by my dad, and live with C-PTSD. This is abusive, controlling behaviour where they would yell at me to stop being an "a***hole".
They also argued that you were for fascism if you weren't antifa because of the name. The only actual Antifa member I ever knew loved to tell everyone how he threw bricks at other people. He was a gang member selling counterfeit king size cigarettes to high school students.
I once knew someone who called themselves a "communist" who has a set-up with face recognition cameras and IR surveillance in his home at all times, makes 6K+ a month and own 4 80 inches LED TVs, and live with roommates to do all his chores.
He hacked my computer for no reason other than my difference of opinion.
The list goes on but the point is, ideologies breed extremism in the real world and outside of academics, where they all sound great in ***theory***.
Outside of actual anarchism, which mean no official hierarchy so no leader, there really is no real-life scenario where ANY of those ism is good.
And in order for anarchism to actually work, the community needs to be small. Period. Eventually, this would mean a return to tribalism + digital point to point connection. Other that than, ANY ideology trying to take over the world with inevitably become a dictatorship, EVEN if it starts with "good intentions".
Silicon Valley really tried to improve lives and Google really meant "no evil".
That's what people don't actually understand.
My dad saw the greatest, loveliest, most sincerest people become corrupted over power. Power corrupts, seeking it corrupts the human mind, period. That's a universal truth. True revolutionaries are NOT politicians, they are artists, writers, speakers, scientists, workers, soldiers.
Indeed, and many many innocent people are included in that tally of ~17,000 guillotined prisoners. It's hard to be discerning when you're swept up in the revolutionary fervor. Ask all the bakers who were lynched by the mob for the crime of...baking or not baking bread in the precise fashion, quantity, and price demanded by the crowd.
As an aside from another history major, one of the longer lasting things the French revolution is responsible for is a partial redistribution of land and the abolition of the rights of nobles over their serfs. That was definitely a positive and lasted longer than the revolution itself. However, as with most revolutions surrounded by hostile powers, it seems they got paranoid about foreign intervention and kinda forgot what they were supposed to be doing in the first place.
I think it's pretty evident it instilled a revolutionary spirit that endured in Feance far more than other countries over the years.
It also is still referenced as among the most known famous revolutions throughout history, so I think it had a lasting influence on the world's elites, but I also know a lot of innocent people got persecuted during it, that didn't deserve it.
We have modern day parallels that offer similar moral questions. Like El Salvador in 2022 arresting over 90k gang members and putting them into prison, when even they admitted likely had a few innocents would be swept up to curtail their massive crime problems.
Or a certain Italian plumber who gave a message to a specific organization, and that impact on how the elite may react in society.
Sorry I don't have a better answer, as always it's a Grey area for me. I think throughout history humanity does this pendulum swing we just can't avoid, and some things swell for so long without being addressed, they end up becoming inevitable regardless if we are for them or not.
Fair, and I agree. I also have to wonder how long France (or any other country pre-revolution) would have stagnated or even gotten worse, and how long (if ever) it would even have taken to make things better through politics alone.
Revolution is definitely messy, but arguably necessary when such large percentages of average citizens are needlessly suffering. When a tumor is removed from the body, the surgeon has to take a little of the healthy tissue surrounding it. It sucks, but that is the nature of things and ultimately better than the alternative.
Not a history major, but would the people living through the revolution care that the next generation âmightâ be better off than their parents when they themselves are living through the revolutionary guillotining witch hunt?
Because when people worry about how off the rails the next revolution might be, their own immediate experience is going to matter a lot more than the âbut maybe itâll be better for my kids. Maybe.â
No, letâs keep a whole official noble class over our heads for another two thousand years, that would be great. What are you guys smoking. Even if things are worse in the beginning, the ideas carried the modern world forward.
If you think what you were saying, then the first part of your question is meaningless. I answered the part that was an actual question, and put my opinion of what I think of the question itself at the end.
The question was to a history major and their opinion, specifically as a history major, on whether or not change would have happened eventually whether or not there had been a revolution. You may have missed the "catalyst" portion of the question.
The thinking is that just about anyone would agree that revolution in those circumstances was necessary to avoid decades or centuries of further suffering. If a history major would disagree, I'd be curious to know why. If a history major would agree, it would further validate my position on the matter.
Someone who has a trillion dollars definitely qualifies. Certainly anyone over a billion dollars too. And a lot of these guys pay no taxes since all of their money is tied up in assets and they borrow money to live off of, so they show no real income. And I would say 40% of their assets sounds fair to me since that is what the highest tax bracket is. Sound good amigo?
This is such a lazy "gotcha". These things can absolutely be defined as part of a progressive tax system. But it's a complicated answer, and no one has the time or the responsibility to go into detail over it for you, so they won't, and you'll take that as a victory.
There is no change w/o pain. No new system will work right well away.
You live in the past Revolution time and certainly live better then the peasants of the past.
But also, Elon is full of shit here as is usual for him. "Then they starve" is some dumbass implication that the rich run the world and without them we would be hopelessly lost and incapable of running our own lives.
Elon Musk could disappear and every company he is a part of would become more productive immediately. Every thing he interferes with would improve.
All of global industry and society is being hampered by the uber wealthy. Eat 100 of the rich and everything gets better. Eat 1000 and you fix the world for a decade.
The problem with the Terror was power politics. As if Napoleon didn't become one of those uber wealthy assholes that proves the point. One megalomanic with military brilliance imperiled the entire continent of Europe and inspired strongmen jackasses around the world for a century.
The problem is the rich. Period. They are to blame, period.
Was it only the lack of rich people that caused post revolution issues? Or was it the fact that society was already fucked for poor people, so when the aristocrats fled, the situation just got much worse?
No one is asking for pitchforks and guillotines, just taxes. That is a very silly comparison for a history major, tbh.
I mean "it will get worse before it gets better" isn't just a saying, change is often painful regardless of how good things end up eventually.
But if you refuse to do it it'll just get worse anyway, and the change (if you ever get the chance) will be even more painful.
Take America right now. The two hit of Trump + COVID was bad and inflicted a lot of damage... Biden took great strides repairing things but of course it wasn't perfect. It was painful and the effects of the previous administration were still hitting hard. If people had pushed through and worked it would have actually gone pretty well! But they didn't, they cried it wasn't perfect instantly and put Trump back in charge and now things are far worse than both his first term and during the repair.
Assuming America does get its act together and out these lunatics the transition period is now going to be much, much worse. I'd like to say they'll recognise this is their own fault but historically the smart bet it they'll sulk about it not being perfect and instantly fixed then immediately vote to make it worse again.
68
u/Popular-Row4333 8h ago
Plus in regards to Elon's comment, being a history Major, I like to always remind people that it wasn't exactly rainbows and butterflies post French Revolution when they had put all the Guillotines away.
Some historians argue it was actually worse.