this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 71 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Actual leftists who don't mind government control of information

Yes, actual leftists. I'm going to quote to you some Marx. This is from Chapter 2 of the Communist Manifesto which is basically a 30 page pamphlet, I suggest you read it. I want you to pay particular attention to number 6.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

  1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

  2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

  3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

  4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

  5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

  6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

  7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

  8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

  9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

  10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

As you can see, nothing here is at odds with that.

Actual leftists that are ok with some people being removed from society because of the groups they belong to.

What groups? If you're about to use Adrian Zenz as a source you are a joke. If you're instead claiming that working to abolish the existence of the bourgeoisie is a bad thing you are a clown.

[–] Catradora_Stalinism@hexbear.net 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You didn't just dunk him, you folded him into a ball and threw him into the sun

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I don't understand how people don't understand that control of the means of communication in the hands of the proletariat is a MUST to create a DOTP. Who the fuck do they think owns the media? The proles? Fuck no, the bourgeoisie own the media. It's ALL their media.

To empower the proletariat in the transitionary socialist state you MUST remove the advantages of the bourgeoisie. This is one of the biggest of them.

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ah but don't you see that removing the knife from your throat before fighting The Caped Throatstabber makes you just as bad as him, because of human nature or something?

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Must?

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries

Also note this part:

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production...

Notice, "in the beginning." Is China socialist or not? It is not the begining. The need to control the means of communication, as well as most of the rest of the goals, is to gain power over the bourgeoisie and place the power into the hands of the people. The means of communication must be seized in order to empower the people to communicate without their interference. How is the control that China has over communication providing for that and not the bourgeoisie itself controlling the media to prevent the people from communicating?

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 29 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Socialism is the transitionary state between capitalism and communism. It exists in a state of warfare between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

We are very far away from defeating capitalism and such measures will remain in place until we have defeated it globally. What the fuck are you thinking? "Yes I want to give billionaires the ability to own media in my proletarian state so they can spew garbage propaganda until their counter-revolution succeeds". Are you out of your mind? What exactly do you gain from this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. All you are advocating for is empowering the bourgeoisie to crush and re-exploit you.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ah, yes. China is definitely trying to defeat capitalism globally by opening and expanding special economic zones. If anything, China has become more capitalist (because it makes the current bourgeoisie who control the "communist" government more money). Xi Jinping seems to have an estimated value of at least $1 billion USD. He's not of the working class. He's from the political class.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Yes. It is. Your lack of understanding about what their tactics are is a personal failure on your part to seek out the information, not a failure on their part to continue to pursue socialism.

Xi Jinping seems to have an estimated value of at least $1 billion USD. He's not of the working class. He's from the political class.

Xi Jinping grew up in a literal fucking cave. This claim is akin to all the estimates of Stalins worth that literally just decided he owned everything that the state owns. Your """source""" for this is capitalist finance blogs after you googled "xi jinping net worth" that don't break down this figure whatsoever. They all just claim it. It's literally the embodiment of:

You have no fucking standards of evidence at all just like you have no fucking standards for yourself.

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[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He lived in a cave for some time because his father lost political favor, not because they were poor. He is of the political class. That's unquestionable. His net worth isn't public, though guesses can be made from the value of stocks his family can own, which isn't insignificant. Him "growing up in a cave" is because of his political class standing, not because he was a poor worker.

(It also wasn't just a cave, but a building constructed of a cave.)

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

can own

This is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your sentence lmao

Him "growing up in a cave" is because of his political class standing, not because he was a poor worker.

Bro they were poor as fuck what are you talking about.

(It also wasn't just a cave, but a building constructed of a cave.)

What the fuck do you think cave houses are? Is this literally the first time you've ever seen one? Are you really admitting to being that uneducated? Cave homes still have doors and windows nitwit. Doesn't change the fact it's still literally a 1 room cave with a bed shared by 4 fucking people.

"They're not poor they just had to share a single bed between 4 people and walk 3 miles for water" is a shitty racist attempt at trying to maintain your position instead of actually taking on board new information you blatantly didn't know until just now.

Did you know he also lived in Iowa for a while? The people he met then love him. He stayed with some farmers to learn various agricultural practices, that he would then take back with him and apply.

[–] Zuzak@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

Did you know he also lived in Iowa for a while?

He's running :xi-vote:

[–] emizeko@hexbear.net 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

“Freedom of the press” is another of the principal slogans of “pure democracy”. And here, too, the workers know — and socialists everywhere have admitted it millions of times — that this freedom is a deception while the best printing presses and the biggest stocks of paper are appropriated by the capitalists and while capitalist rule over the press remains, a rule that is manifested throughout the world all the more strikingly, sharply, and cynically, the more democracy and the republican system are developed, as in America for example.

The first thing to do to win real equality and genuine democracy for the working people, for the workers and peasants, is to deprive capital of the possibility of hiring writers, buying up publishing houses, and hiring newspapers. And to do that the capitalists and exploiters have to be overthrown and their resistance suppressed.

The capitalists have always used the term ‘freedom’ to mean freedom for the rich to get richer and for the workers to starve to death.

In capitalist usage, freedom of the press means freedom of the rich to bribe the press, freedom to use their wealth to shape and fabricate so-called public opinion.

In this respect, too, the defenders of ‘pure democracy’ prove to be defenders of an utterly foul and venal system that gives the rich control over the mass media. They prove to be deceivers of the people who, with the aid of plausible, fine-sounding, but thoroughly false phrases, divert them from the concrete historical task of liberating the press from capitalist enslavement.

—Lenin, Congress of the First Comintern

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, this is exactly what I said. The control needs to be taken away from the capitalist class who control it in most places. The goal after the bourgeoisie are removed from control is for the people to have control though, not some new bourgeoisie.

[–] iie@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

you're asking communist states to relax their defenses while America is still the dominant power on the planet