MyVisionity wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 9:19 pm
Just want to add that it's ok to "argue with the dictionary". The dictionary is a helpful resource, but it's important to know when to put it aside and use your own judgement and reasoning. You shouldn't just assume that the dictionary is always right.
No, but that doesn't mean you can make up your own definitions of words and insist that they have to mean only what you say.
Historically, simply "not being capitalism" has lead to a whole bunch of different kinds of societies, many of which do not fit into your grade-school ideas of left and right. Also, it's interesting that you think capitalism "just needs reform" and communism is fundamentally corrupt, when more people die of capitalism every single year than the entire history of so-called "communism", as embellished by capitalists counting nazis killed in WWII as "deaths of communism".
Sure, if you count every single person who has ever died while living in a capitalist nation as a 'death caused by capitalism'.
I agree that the US is too capitalist and needs to change. But nations like Denmark, Sweden, and Finland have much better standards of living than the US, which shows that the moderate socialist policies they have implemented work. But they are still capitalist.
Me correctly identifying people as right-wing is fundamentally different than them lying about being leftists. YOU spreading that lie is exactly what they would have wanted. And for the record, I'm arguing with the specific definition you cited because it's wrong, or at least reductive. I could cite the oxford languages dictionary myself if I wanted to, which clearly states collective ownership by the working class. But I'm not going to do that, because that would imply I think you're going to listen. You're making an argument from authority, and an argument from a different authority won't help.
Claiming that Stalinist Russia and Maoist China were right-wing is just such a ridiculous claim, and one that I've never heard before from any source whatsoever, left or right. I just can't take that claim seriously. It's like saying that the Catholic church is an atheist organization, or that the Nazis were all really Jews.
Do you think capitalism just...invented all markets or something?
There are degrees of capitalism. As has been pointed out, even present-day China has a degree of capitalism in its economy. Capitalism is defined as a nation's trade, industry, and profits being controlled by private individuals and corporations. Too much of that is obviously bad. But if you were to eliminate it 100%, that would mean that the trade, industry, and profits would be 100% controlled by the government, which is just as bad.
Also, nice new world order conspiracy bullshit
No conspiracy. I'm just pointing out the implausibility of such a system. I'm not saying that I'm afraid it''s going to happen, but that it's completely impractical to actually pull off.
No, they counted precisely on that. That was the point of that government and that society. There is no part of equality that starts with vanguard party rule. It's the same shit as in America, where a bunch of slave-owning rich guys claimed they were fighting for "freedom". It wasn't a mistake, it was a lie.
Have you read Marx and Lenin? They constantly talked about equality and making sure everyone would get their fair share. But their ideas on how to accomplish that obviously failed.
This is directly from the Communist Manifesto:
This school of Socialism dissected with great acuteness the contradictions in the conditions of modern production. It laid bare the hypocritical apologies of economists. It proved, incontrovertibly, the disastrous effects of machinery and division of labour; the concentration of capital and land in a few hands; overproduction and crises; it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois and peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of extermination between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family relations, of the old nationalities.
Sure sounds like they were aiming for equality and fairness, at least originally. Of course you'll probably just accuse them of lying.
Also, people are inherently cooperative and social. Any society you build makes a conscious choice to emphasize certain things humans do, and none of them are more "natural" than others, to say nothing of what is "natural" not necessarily being what is right.
But you can't expect every single person in a large society to play by the rules if there is no way to enforce said rules. People already take advantage of capitalism to accrue wealth and power for themselves at the expense of others, what would stop them from doing the same thing in an anarchist system?
WOW, this is some real "Well it was WHITE PEOPLE who ended slavery" bullshit. A "nuking Japan was good because we eventually got anime"-level bootlick.
WTF are you talking about? That's a complete non-sequitur. I'm just asking you to explain how your ideal government is even supposed to work, because from where I'm standing, it makes no sense whatsoever.
I'm not redefining anything, you are. The left has never at any point been about authoritarian socially-conservative state-capitalist police states. If you think it has, then go tell these people they're pro-police, tell these people they're social conservatives, these people they love capitalism, and then maybe strip naked and smash your computer with a baseball bat because technology and clothing aren't "natural".
Social and fiscal conservatism aren't always linked, many groups are in support of one but oppose the other. There is also a spectrum. Those people are considered left-wing by the standard of US politics, but in communist governments they would be considered right-wing, as they likely support the idea of at least some percentage of the means of production being owned by individuals and corporations.