Your fundamental argument relies on it even being possible to peacefully go against the ruling class and bend the state in the favor of the Proletariat. This assumption leaves your analysis dead in the water. Combining that with a failure to analyze Capital to any meaningful degree, and the failure of analysis as regards the ever-increasing complexity of production and the benefits of central planning, means you’re left with the equivalent of universal healthcare in a Capitalist economy.

A good idea, no doubt, but will always be undermined by the ruling class, and thus is both incomplete and not a real solution.

The complicated system we have is because of megacorporations lobbying to make it that way. We cannot push against that. Further, the vast rise of large industry and megacorps plays a larger role in society than housing, which is still important, but not the dominating aspect of the economy.

Georgism isn’t really a part of the problem, but it’s also not part of the solution.

You don’t move towards Capitalism if you vote right or move towards Socialism if you move left. You don’t change the entire base like that. Eventually, a build up of quantitative pressure will result in a qualitative change, but you won’t be halfway at any point.

It really isn’t possible to have Capitalism, a system where private ownership holds the large firms, key industries, and state power, while genuinely restricting it. Regulations in Capitalist countries serve to punish small firms and ensure large Capital succeeds, it solodifies their status.

“Economic theory” does not suggest workers and owners reach a balance. Economics and history prove that wealth and Capital concentrate in fewer and fewer hands, as large firms supercede the small ones. Further, financial Capital is Capital of a different sort, and is the means by which the US and EU Imperialize countries in the Global South. Stiglitz may make a decent argument rhetorically as you read, but his writings don’t hold up to history while Marx’s do.

I’m aware of Georgeism, it isn’t some grand secret trump card to pull. It’s just a more restricted form of Capitalism, it doesn’t address the base. Land Value Tax may be a neat idea, but it would only slow the progression of Capitalism to fewer and fewer firms. Further, Capitalists would just wind it back when it suits them, even if by some miracle you could get them established.

No? Very silly fanfiction you’ve got there. I do think in a future Socialist society Marxism-Leninism should be taught in schools, same with history, but the idea that you’d be shot and killed for refusing to do so is laughable.

I know you don’t like history books, you already said you’re a libertarian 😜

Feel free to read Russian Justice. They weren’t theme parks, but not nearly as bad as you probably think they were, nor at the scale you imply.

Dekulakization was the process of collectivizing agriculture. This process was frustrated by Kulaks, bourgeois plantation owners, killing crops and their farm animals, rather than handing them over to the red army, and even getting into skirmishes with the red army. This led to famine. The reasoning for collectivization was absolutely driven by Marxist analysis, so we can file this under “deaths that happened because the Soviets were trying to bring about Socialism,” though the blame is absolutely on the Kulaks.

The 1930s famine was a tragedy, accelerated by drought, though the Ukrainian Communists hid how bad the famine was getting until it was too late. This can be considered partially state responsible, though obviously most of the blame is on the Ukrainian Communists for trying to hide how bad it was getting. It was more of a human error compounding a natural famine, hard to attribute it to Marxism or not.

Those that died during the purges? Yep, the fascists, White Army war criminals, rapists, anti-semites, and murderers made up the majority of those executions, and these people may have lived had the Tsar remained. There likely were innocents killed as a part of the chaos, though. All in all, definitely a consequence of the Socialist system defending itself from an onslaught of infiltrators.

Deportation? Not really driven by Marxism, and I don’t know enough about that particular subject to speak on it.

The USSR as a whole was formed based on Marxist analysis, it was a largely publicly owned and centrally planned economy. Life expectancy doubled, literacy rates over tripled to 99.9%, healthcare, education, and childcare were free and high quality, and working hours were lowered gradually and vacation days were higher than in the US. Whether or not the USSR was following Marxism isn’t in question, it absolutely was for the bulk of its existence guided by Marxist analysis, even if errors were made along the way.

On the other hand, Capitalism kills millions directly every year. The US Empire committed many deliberate genocides during the USSR’s existence, while the Soviets stopped the Holocaust. You are happily accepting the US State Department line, and doing their work for free.

What an… “interesting” way to put words in my mouth, lmao. Gulag incarceration rates were lower than US imprisonment, by the way.

Also, Pol Pot shouldn’t be grouped with Marxists, he denounced Marxism and practiced his own thing.

I literally referenced that paragraph, and explained. The vast majority of gulag deaths, included in that 1.5-1.7 million estimate, were starvations during World War II. The executions? The large majority were, again, rapists, murderers, fascists, war criminals, and members of the White Army.

The total deliberate killings of innocents? Entirely left obscure. Any execution is marked as “excess,” including the criminals I listed, starvations during World War II are “excess” rather than listed as deliberate murders from the Nazis.

I even said there were excess deaths, my point (that you’re proving, no less) is that real facts are quantitatively and qualitatively obfuscated to push a narrative.

Would you mind telling me what point you think I’m making?

Communism absolutely works, it’s an irrefutable fact. Communists are currently running the largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity, with the largest reduction of poverty in history and a regularly lowering wealth inequality. Historically, countries like Russia, China, Cuba, etc saw doublings of life expectancy, free healthcare and education, over triplings of literacy rates to 99.9%, and more. This is all publicly available information.

It’s more that I’m aware that the purpose of calling me a “fucking commie” was not said with kindness, though I am a Communist so that “insult” doesn’t really hurt. I’m not really mad, just disappointed, was hoping you would respond to my points instead of plugging your ears when shown irrefutable facts.

Which subject, specifically? If you mean Marxism-Leninism, I made an introductory reading list, if you mean Idealism and Materialism, as well as Dialectical Materialism (the philosophical component of Marxism), I highly recommend Elementary Principles of Philosophy by Georges Politzer.

Even the Wikipedia article opens up, affirming what I just said:

Estimates of the number of deaths attributable to the Soviet revolutionary and dictator Joseph Stalin vary widely.[1] The scholarly consensus affirms that archival materials declassified in 1991 contain irrefutable data far superior to sources used prior to 1991, such as statements from emigres and other informants.

Even further, it attributes starvations in gulags occuring during World War II when the Nazis invaded Ukraine, the USSR’s breadbasket, to the USSR rather than Nazi Germany. It also includes all executions as “excess deaths,” presumably implying any execution is unjustified, even those of fascists and the members of the White Army that had committed crimes against humanity.

The article even says the 20 million number commonly reported is bogus, and the actual number of deliberate deaths is less than 5% of that, and among those deliberate deaths were legitimate executions of murderers, rapists, anti-semites, and war criminals.

This does mean that there were certainly excesses, but at the same time, you’ve gone straight to a non-scholarly source influenced heavily by the US government, who has been known to lie about the very subject, or try to obfuscate the real character of events.

You can be more specific, without specificity all I can say is that most westerners’ view of excess mortality in the Soviet Union comes from the Black Book of Communism, notoriously debunked “historical” book that included the following as “deaths due to Communism:”

1. Nazis killed during World War II
2. People the Nazis killed
3. Non-births as deaths (such as increased access to contraceptives)
4. Made-up numbers to get to the “100 million” figure everyone has heard of
5. Came out before the release of the Soviet Archives
6. Several of its own writers came out and denounced the book for being essentially mythology

No Marxist asserts that there were no excess deaths in Socialist states, that would certainly be off-base. However, us Marxists do affirm that historical record overwhelmingly favors the notion that the real historical totals are heavily distorted quantitatively and qualitatively in western media and education.

If you want to be specific, we can go further into detail, if you’d like.

You didn’t really disagree, though, you just refused to actually respond and then called me a “fucking commie.” You do understand how that can be percieved as being irrationally angry, right? You showed no rationality, and were throwing insults at me.

Though I am a Communist and don’t really take offense by it.

That’s not what the other commenter is speaking about, the speaker (and this meme) are talking about these concepts in the Marxist sense. Idealism is closer to the idea that ideas exist independent of surrounding reality, and an application of idealism would be the assertion that Marx was an especially gifted human that came up with Marxism of his own. Materialism asserts instead that Marx existed within the context of his existence, and his experiences and those he learned from were the primary genesis of Marxism.

Marx asserts that Materialism is true. In the context of the prior example, Marxism could not have come about before society had learned and advanced to the level that Marx first was born in. Marxism may not have come from Marx, but anyone else following that period, who had similar material conditions, but the prerequisite progression of society and the experiences before them allowed Marxism to come to being.

I recommend reading Elementary Principles of Philosophy to better understand these concepts.

There are 2 big errors here. The first is the idea that Actually Existing Socialist states, the ones governed by Communist parties historically and presently, have nothing in common with the “ideal” of Communism. The second is the idea that Communism is an ideal. I bring this up because your perception is very common, especially in the West.

People not trained in Marxism-Leninism tend to see Communism as a perfect model to emulate, ie a “utopia,” while Marx himself was strictly anti-utopian, instead firmly believing in taking a scientific approach to Socialism. This means that different levels of development and situations will have different structures of society, but all will generally hold the power in the working class through a proletarian government.

In reality, states like the USSR absolutely followed Marxist analysis when deciding what to do and when. This is abundantly clear when reading historical documents and rationale. This can be further obfuscated by western propaganda, like the idea that Socialism concentrated power into the hands of the few, when in all cases it has represented a democratization as compared to previous systems like Tsarism.

The combination of the “Red Scare” vision of all AES states being the default, combined with a thoroughly “liberal” vision of Marx as some Utopian as the default for understanding Marx in the west, leads to a very difficult time with growing Marxist movements.

As a side note, idealism doesn’t refer to literal ideals, like goals and such. Idealism instead refers to philosophical idealism as opposed to materialism. The idealists believed that ideas come before matter, ie everyone exists in their own mind palace perception of the world. The materialists like Marx believe the opposite, that matter creates ideas. Social practice like labor creates social consciousness, this is why Marx believed the proletariat as accustomed to cooperative labor form a genuinely revolutionary class towards socialism, while other classes do not to the same extent.

Second side note, all states are authoritarian, all states are the means by which one class asserts its authority. It is good for states to be proletarian.

Traditionally, idealism places ideas before material reality, while materialism places material reality before ideas. Idealism isn’t usually a deliberate choice.

An example of idealism in practice would be “Great Man Theory,” the idea that history is driven by great men and their great ideas. Materialism asserts the opposite, that production and material forces are the driving force of history, and that historical leaders aren’t special people. Don’t confuse this as the idea that leaders have no power, more that, say, figures like Lenin are remembered because of their achievements, Lenin wasn’t destined from birth as a special being.

People are born into a definite reality, and this shapes your experiences from birth. A peasant in 1500s England has an entirely different framework of ideas as a modern English worker. This is why social classes have a large impact on ideas, small business owners are constantly chasing large business owner dreams, yet crushed by centralization of market forces.

Good point. I do want to highlight, however, that “politics” for them seems to be divorced from the base, sovereign as an almost “outsider.” The class struggle appears to be missing, along with the class character of the state. They very nearly grasp the essence of the Marxist position, if we remove the terminological differences, you’re correct in pointing that out.

What was important was not whether or not people voted for “progressives” or voted in larger quantities for the DNC. What mattered was growing Communist sympathies and labor organization. The “inputs” that drove the “outputs” were entirely disconnected from the bounds of electoralism, but labor organizing.

That’s why I say there’s no evidence the DNC can be moved left. The progressive movements were only at the behest of Capital, not the workers, because Capital feared for the usurption of its ruling status.