this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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Didn't you hear? China's been one gigantic people's union since 1949. That's the whole point of Communism. As you can see, it's working swimmingly well.
Tiananmen square protests were (also) against introduction of capitalism to China, so... you know... (https://jacobin.com/2019/06/tiananmen-square-worker-organization-socialist-democracy)
I was implying nothing about any other type of societal organization. However, since you mention it, I will point out that Capitalism (which is an economic, not political philosophy) can become horrific for the same reasons Communism becomes horrific - People. Communism was a response to naked, mercantilist Capitalism. Marx's heart was in the right place, but he was describing a Utopia.
I think Democracy (in its many forms) designed with checks and balances is a viable answer to the problem. It ain't magic, though. People still need to ensure it remains balanced. We've been having some trouble with that lately. It took fifty years of planning for the authoritarians to get us here. It's a good sign it was so difficult, but now we have to work hard to fix the mess.
Calling marx utopian lol
Yeah, you wish. Electoralism will always work in favour of the wealthy class. Even damn ancient Greeks knew that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
TIL Sortition. Thanks. Your since you don't believe in democracy, what form of governance do you feel is best?
Sortition.
I'd love to hear the logistics of making that work well in the current world.
Chinas communist party is as communist as trump is a democratic leader.
Or as our German „Christian party“ is christian…
Christianity: love thy neighbour German christianity party: the immigrants are ruining our cityscapes by their presence
Sounds like American Evangelism. I bet they coordinate.
Tell me you don't know what communism is and can't recognise a dictatorship under the guise of communism without telling me you don't know what communism is.
I imagine that you're from the US? If so, it's understandable. Dr. Strangelove was what opened my eyes to how demonised it is and how misguided people in the US are to its true ideology and meaning.
The USSR, where the gov controlled most of the means of production, is the antithesis of communism.
Sarcasm. The comment you replied to was being facetious. Obviously things are not going swimmingly. Use your context clues.
Thank you for the assist. You are correct. I made the fatal assumption that most people discussing such things would have the context of Mao, the long march, the various purges, the decades of poverty, the suppression and outright murder of minorities under their belt and would recognize that the statement was so obviously false that it could only be taken as sarcasm. Unfortunately, I didn't account for people having arrogance and a sense of other people being ignorant morons by default.
Yeah no, sounds more like a dig at communism, ya know, the usual rhetoric, hey, look at this dictatorship, as you can clearly see, communism doesn't work
Is it? Seemed like a dig specifically at the fact that China doesn't have a true union movement. Not a dog at communism in general.
China isn't communist, nor very socialist, for that matter.
Capitalism with Chinese characteristics seems more of an apt description.
Pointing out that China is a dictatorship doesn't mean that socialism is bad.
Yes. I simply found it somewhat ironic that someone would point out that a Communist nation would need unions given the definition of Communism. It was to me a Monty Python level of dry humor to suggest that, and I felt my response should match that dry humor.
Oh, I forgot to address the Dr. Strangelove reference. Did you know that was parody and sharp criticism of not just The United States, but of the power structures of the whole (first) world at the time? If that kind of criticism were made in the U.S.S.R. or China, Cuba, etc., of their leadership, the film would be banned and everyone involved would be imprisoned or disappeared. We're allowed to criticize stupidity in leadership over here (for the moment). We believe it is a useful tool to try to make things better, or at least a bit more sane.
sigh. I know what communism is. I also know it's never been implemented in real life and never will be due to the nature of a subset of humans inflicted with various personality traits like Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Sociopathy... not to mention simple greed and basic envy.
I find it interesting that you first assigned to me the characteristics of ignorance and arrogance, and then pegged me to a certain nationality, thus revealing your uninformed bias against an entire nation containing over 300 million people - many of whom probably fled whichever morally superior country you call home - simply for living there.
Now, as for the assertion that government control of the means of production is the antithesis of communism, I give you first a description of Karl Marx's vision:
Now, has it ever crossed your mind how this could possibly be implemented? I mean when you literally have millions of people collectively owning everything and therefore whatever is needed must be somehow made available wherever it is needed. Where will things be stored, and who will manage it? Who will ensure nothing is stolen from the people? Who will ensure item or resource "A" is transited from somewhere to the place it is needed? Word of mouth? Telegraph? What if nobody feels like manning the telegraph or decides not to relay the message to the next person? Heck - how do they know who the next person is?
In any sufficiently large group of people, some form of "government" has to exist merely to facilitate meeting the needs of the people being governed. So, I put it to you that the U.S.S.R. was in fact "implementing communism" by being the "people's government" and thus, by their logic, everything is "owned" by the government. They have to know where it is, how to protect it, how to ensure there is enough of it to meet needs, etc.. Unfortunately "power corrupts". Or in the case of the Red revolution, it decapitates a revolution for freedom and democracy the moment it wins power and takes its place.