Haven’t you heard?
Hell is other people.
The problem with communism is it assumes everyone wants that same thing. There are some evil baddies that don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. They only care about the money and the power and are usually the ones that eventually become the leaders.
If someone can tell me of an actual communist country that has worked, I’m all ears. I’m sure you could do it on a small scale, because you can weed out the baddies. On a large scale though? The greeds will take over just like anything else.
Maybe, maybe not. That’s an untested theory. Though I do think communists tend to overstate the power and influence of the CIA and other western sabotage. They certainly had an influence but they were not solely responsible for every single domestic problem the PRC and USSR had. Many were clearly attributable to their own policy decisions.
Resilience to outside interference and internal perturbations is one of the criteria based on which a system has to be evaluated.
“Communism can’t work because greed, so we should stick with a system built entirely around enabling and promoting greed because that will solve the greed issue.”
Riiiiightio.
So you have an example of it working for a country longer than 20 years? Let’s hear where it is.
If you stick with that system that enables and promotes greed, you can then regulate it (rather than make greed illegal and then be surprised that it’s not working). We’d need to actually see socialism somewhere before we can judge which approach is better (both will eventually be consumed by capital), but socialism does have serious persistence issues that need to be considered.
It doesn’t even need to be bad people at first. For example under a socialist society can you pay a teenager to mow your lawn? What about if you promise to help someone find a teenager to mow their lawn and take a percentage of the money? What if you do it a hundred times?
Edit: Engrish.
I have to agree. Maybe that teenager loves this idea because they’re kind of shy. Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, etc., started out as exactly that, but then they became the greeds. Also, there are tons of small businesses that don’t became complete assholes and have employees that live a good life. Capitalism can work, it’s just having a heart attack right now.
The idea behind leftist criticism of capitalism is that inevitably the greedy businesses will expand more and cannibalize the none-asshole businesses. Think of what Walmart and co did to local grocers. The heart attack (aka late stage capitalism) is the inevitable result of capitalists being allowed to accumulate wealth over generations and capture the system that was supposed to keep them in check, because fundamentally under a capitalist system money is power and the rich have more of it than you do. I honestly have no idea how to solve this, but the problem is a bit deeper than just a heart attack.
Oh, we all have to die first? Well shit, there’s always a catch
