DO NOT MAKE A POST ABOUT BEING BANNED FROM SOME OTHER SUBREDDIT

You give them an inch and they will fund media that will tell people to hate the poor, immigrants and leftists. They will rig elections. They will gladly kill you for a few more bucks in their account. As long as they’re able to poison the minds of the working class, humanity will never transcend. The bourgeoisie and a civilized society CANNOT COEXIST.

So far, I have drawn up some Marxist canons, of which I am open to correction. One would be a Kautskyan or Menshevik second international canon, the other would be a regular Marxism Stalinism. Here are they:

Second International:
**Phase I — Foundations**
**The Communist Manifesto** — Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels (**1848**)
**Socialism: Utopian and Scientific** — Friedrich Engels (**1880**)
**Wage Labour and Capital** — Karl Marx (**1847**)
**Value, Price and Profit** — Karl Marx (**1865**; published **1898**)
**The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx** — Karl Kautsky (**1887**)

**Phase II — The Economic System**
**Capital, Volume I** — Karl Marx (**1867**)
**Capital, Volume II** — Karl Marx, edited by Engels (**1885**)
**Capital, Volume III** — Karl Marx, edited by Engels (**1894**)
**The Poverty of Philosophy** — Karl Marx (**1847**)
**The Housing Question** — Friedrich Engels (**1872–1873**)

**Phase III — Historical Materialism**
**Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy** — Friedrich Engels (**1886**)
**The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State** — Friedrich Engels (**1884**)
**The Peasant War in Germany** — Friedrich Engels (**1850**)
**The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte** — Karl Marx (**1852**)
**The Class Struggles in France, 1848–1850** — Karl Marx (**1850**)
**The Civil War in France** — Karl Marx (**1871**)
**The Development of the Monist View of History** — Georgi Plekhanov (**1895**)
**The Materialist Conception of History** — Georgi Plekhanov (**1897**)

**Phase IV — Philosophy**
**Anti-Dühring** (*Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science*) — Friedrich Engels (**1878**)
**The Fundamental Problems of Marxism** — Georgi Plekhanov (**1908**)
**Our Differences** — Georgi Plekhanov (**1885**)
**Socialism and the Political Struggle** — Georgi Plekhanov (**1883**)
**The Role of the Individual in History** — Georgi Plekhanov (**1898**)

**Phase V — Doctrine and Party Orthodoxy**
**Critique of the Gotha Programme** — Karl Marx (**1875**; published **1891**)
**The Erfurt Program** — SPD (theoretical section by Karl Kautsky) (**1891**)
**The Class Struggle (The Erfurt Program Explained)** — Karl Kautsky (**1892**)
**Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History** — Karl Kautsky (**1906**)
**Major SPD Congress Resolutions** (**1891–1912**)

**Phase VI — Strategy and Revolution**
**The Agrarian Question** — Karl Kautsky (**1899**)
**The Road to Power** — Karl Kautsky (**1909**)
**The Social Revolution** — Karl Kautsky (**1902**)
**Major Resolutions of the Second International** (**1889–1912**)
**Selected Articles from Die Neue Zeit** — Karl Kautsky (**primarily 1883–1914**)

**Phase VII — The Post-1917 Schism**
**The Dictatorship of the Proletariat** — Karl Kautsky (**1918**)
**Terrorism and Communism** — Karl Kautsky (**1919)**

Stalinist canon:

*Communist Manifesto*
*The German Ideology*
*Capital* I–III
*Anti-Dühring*
*Materialism and Empirio-Criticism*
*Critique of the Gotha Programme*
*What Is to Be Done?*
*Two Tactics*
*Imperialism*
*State and Revolution*
*Left-Wing Communism*
*Foundations of Leninism*
*Problems of Leninism*
*History of the CPSU (Short Course)*

Why do Mao zedong thank Japan for conquering China?

​

Hey guys, I'm currently working on a new system I created based on certain principles of communism and socialism, while also integrating other things. If someone could analyze it or give their opinion on it, that would be great. Anyway, I'm starting guy judt im sorry but i have to use ia for something bc he well know how to devlopp it

OUR PROGRAM

Total Nationalization: All means of production (factories, mines, farmland, maritime resources) are the property of the Nation, with the return of assets to the people!

Quota Contract (Foundation): The State guarantees free housing, healthcare, and food. In exchange, citizens fulfill a quota of production or hours that can be used for the proper functioning of the State or for the redistribution of goods.

Dual Labor System: Working time is divided in two: the "Quota" for common survival, and voluntary "Surplus." Working on the Surplus allows one to earn Citizen Currency, thus increasing one's standard of living with comfort or the purchase of new or better equipment, for example.

⚫ Citizen Currency is a closed-circuit internal currency used to pay civil servants working overtime or for producers to receive their currency when they sell their surplus. This currency has no intrinsic value on the international or national market; therefore, its purpose is to remain internal

What if a friend wants to travel abroad and therefore needs foreign currency or something else? In this type of case, the state, through the city office, will ask that if you are a producer, you must produce x kg, tons, or a number of y. The state will sell it and then give you back that same currency. If you are in a service industry, the state will ask you to work x y hours of overtime, which would be equivalent to the price of your purchase.

ECONOMY

Economy

Realization Economy

The economy aims to produce tangible wealth rather than financial speculation.

Labor, technology, and innovation are the main drivers of development.

Citizen Currency

This national currency circulates only within the country.

It remunerates:

surplus labor;

certain services; exchanges between citizens.

Foreign currencies remain in use for international trade.

External Management

The State will export resources from the quota or purchase surplus from citizens to receive foreign currency and import with that same currency.

Economic and Monetary Engine

\*\*\*Economic Blitzkrieg:\*\* Immediate use of national reserves (euros) upon the switchover to neutralize sanctions (due to debt relief or other factors) and ensure the system's survival.

POLITICS, GOVERNANCE

The Citizens' Assembly

It comprises:

50 citizens aged 16 to 25, chosen by lot, meant to represent youth

and 50 other citizens, also chosen by lot

100 deputies, experts in their field, elected for 4 years

It votes on laws, oversees the government, and can initiate impeachment proceedings according to

constitutional rules.

Workers' Council

The workers' council ensures that laws are constitutional and is rather symbolic

acting as a kind of senate

City Offices or People's Committee

Each city has a City Office responsible for:

⚫ allocating quotas;

⚫ organizing logistics;

⚫ coordinating public services;

⚫ managing local needs;

promoting mediation before conflicts;

ensuring administrative transparency.

Residents participate directly in its operation.

And food redistribution

In the City Office, there are 3 mediators responsible for local justice and law graduates

(Note: judgments are made with the residents affected by the crime committed by the criminal, which makes corruption or favoritism much more visible). From an administration of people

in charge of logistics and local elected officials in charge of the proper functioning of the city or province.

City offices decentralize power, but power remains centralized. City offices must send data back to Paris.

Presidency

I propose a term without a time limit. This means that I would not have a fixed term and could remain in office as long as I govern properly. On the other hand, the impeachment procedure would be much simpler.

Let's imagine that I am impeached; an election will be held where the people will have to elect from among the members of parliament or others via sponsorship by city offices.

PRODUCTION (INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE MARINE...)

Reindustrialization

France is regaining a complete industrial base.

P

Each mine is accompanied by processing plants to directly manufacture finished products.

Raw materials are no longer exported in their raw state. Therefore, mines and plants are reopened with on-site coal processing to reduce the environmental cost and finance transportation.

Agriculture

The objective is food self-sufficiency.

Agricultural land is modernized.

Local production is encouraged.

Processing sectors are developed to control the entire food chain.

The State organizes the redistribution of products guaranteeing the food supply stipulated by the Quota Contract. And now farmers sell their products themselves, unlike currently where they are robbed by large capitalist supermarkets. And massive recruitment in the agricultural and industrial sectors.

Maritime Sovereignty and Fishing

\*\*\*Coastal Protection:\*\* Creation of a vigilant and strict coast guard against illegal fishing (especially bottom trawling). Sanctions Policy:\*\* Zero tolerance: license revocation, heavy fines, and confiscation of illegal catches.

\*\*\*Fishing Lobby:\*\* Creation of a large national lobby to support artisanal fishers and revitalize the fleet.

EDUCATION R&D

Education and Research

Education becomes lifelong.

A national digital platform brings together:

programs:

textbooks;

courses:

assessments.

Each neighborhood has a mini educational center offering:

academic support;

literacy;

language learning;

administrative assistance;

vocational training.

via 1 or 2 hours per age group

Professionals work regularly with young people.

Any funding idea rejected by the city office can be tested.

by itself on a small scale using the Citizen Currency.

If the results are conclusive, the State can fund its development.

national.

HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR JOB???

During the end of middle school, a work-study program is created. The state will place children in different trades according to local employment needs, and this work-study program can last 1 or 2 years. The goal is for young people to find new passions or to help with career guidance. At the end of this work-study program, guidance will be offered: to continue in the type of trade practiced during the work-study program, to pursue further studies, or to choose another trade. If a trade beyond this is not chosen, the person will be placed in a sector by the state until a profession is found.

Dissolution of the Parcoursup platform

ECOLOGY

Urban Planning

Every citizen has a home.

The new neighborhoods include:

energy-efficient buildings;

white roofs;

green walls;

green spaces;

More trees

Creation of a rainwater harvesting network system, particularly for irrigation, and less depletion of groundwater.

Creation of Nature Sanctuaries: Areas closed to the public for the complete regeneration of biodiversity.

Massive development of renewable energy while not destroying nuclear power, therefore creation of solar panels, wind turbines, and hydroelectric dams. However, on the subject of nuclear power, we will keep our power plants but will not build any more.

Public transportation becomes a priority.

with a transition to electric

The rail network is highly developed.

Rural areas benefit from a comprehensive network.

The national automotive industry produces mainly for export while reducing domestic dependence on private cars. Some transportation, including buses and trams, will be free.

ECOLOGY

Project to create an artificial river in France: how will it work?

First, we will dig a channel between the Atlantic Ocean and the land, but keeping the two separated for a while. Installation of a system capable of managing the water level and preventing flooding.

Then, the river will initially be used to irrigate all the nearby crops, thus creating more crops near the river so they can be properly irrigated, especially wheat. Creation of rice paddies as well.

Then, construction of hydroelectric dams, because if a river is very wide and a narrower channel is created, there will be a lot of pressure. So, installation of hydroelectric dams, then of constructed pools, especially for the summer, fishing areas, and also for transport via small boats

The river will naturally generate economic activity, particularly through the constructed swimming pools. This will lead to the establishment of numerous restaurants nearby by the state, as well as other recreational areas, and also a significant amount of agriculture, as the river will be able to irrigate crops for kilometers.

!

Just to clarify, a water desalination system is already installed, and certain areas will be designated for planting trees and promoting biodiversity. Of course, the river will be constructed in accordance with the existing land and will take into account the ecology, including the water table and the species living in the areas being excavated.

IMMIGRATION

PASSPORT =

Planned Immigration: Open Borders, Controlled Arrival

Immigrants submit their CVs in advance and have an interview with an agent, either online or in person. Upon arrival, they have an interview and complete a questionnaire; their housing and job are already reserved.

The main objective is to facilitate integration and achieve the goal of zero homelessness and zero unemployment.

In practice, the state refuses entry to very few people, except in exceptional cases; this is why I speak of planned immigration, but with open borders.

Furthermore, the presence of mini-neighborhood hubs in most neighborhoods simplifies integration and therefore citizenship.

Because currently, our society despises migrants and immigration, because the far right has implemented disastrous reforms, and so we look for someone to blame, and for them, here it is (and also via the National Front, which has great regret over "abandoning Algeria" and has decided to target migrants).

Look around you. Who built the roads, the tunnels, who rebuilt this country after the war, who works in the kitchens, on the construction sites, in the hospitals? It's this immigration, the kind we despise today. This country was built on the backs of people who came from elsewhere. We owe them not only respect, we owe them a place. To fail to welcome them with dignity is an insult to history

We were forced to accept lines on maps, barriers erected by colonizers who had never set foot where they drew the lines. These same powers that emptied the coffers of our countries, that exhausted our lands, they come and tell us: "No, you stay where you are." It's utter hypocrisy. "Give jobs and housing first to the French," which implies that the immigrant is a resource thief. "National preference" is just a way to pit workers against each other. If you divide the workers, you win everything for the bosses, because the workers can no longer unite to demand more rights.

They refuse to admit that France prospered thanks to plunder. The far-right's discourse on immigration isn't about "flows," it's a continuation of colonialism: they welcome immigrants when they serve as labor, but they no longer want to see them as equal citizens.

JUSTICE

Justice Tripartite:

Punitive (violent crimes, corruption, organized crime, child sexual abuse): total firmness.

Restorative (incivilities, pollution): obligation to repair the damage (cleanup, reconstruction).

Rehabilitative (traffickers, petty offenses)

Corruption in this system: Corruption is not possible due to the fact that transactions are digital and very little involves cash. However, given the quota system, if a citizen only fulfills their mandatory quota, they cannot magically receive citizen currency. As for favoritism, particularly with mediators, this is hardly possible because minor offenses and judgments are made with citizens, making favoritism quickly apparent. On this subject, minor offenses and those affecting residents are handled at the town hall with a mediator and residents, creating a kind of social pressure. If someone, for example, tries to fulfill their quota by doing poor-quality work to quickly reach the surplus, they will be judged. Since residents participate, this creates pressure because if they fail to fulfill their quota, it's important to remember that the quota is redistributed, used, or sold. Therefore, if someone fails, it's as if they have given poor-quality currency to their fellow citizen, a brother to France

HEALTH

In the system, health and access to care are free, guaranteed by the quota that everyone contributes. Here are our actions for health

Creation of a massive French pharmaceutical industry to increase our sovereignty and avoid shortages; improve the status of medical personnel in society in general; more recruitment; more places in competitive exams to allow for lower quota hours, but ensuring hospitals remain active due to the large number of nursing assistants; creation of more hospitals; prevention and vaccination campaigns; fight against smoking and alcoholism; better equipment in hospitals and, through total nationalization, private clinics or those run by the wealthy are now public, guaranteeing quality care for everyone and relieving pressure on hospitals, and above all, improving salaries (citizen currency)

For heat waves, hospitals will equip themselves with emergency blankets on windows; plant more trees and install air conditioners

Fight against ultra-processed foods, against obesity and diabetes.

It’s so clear to me that these communist leaders don’t care about their people and sell grain to neighboring countries like the true capitalists they are

What policies could have given the USSR the upper hand in the cold war? Something that may have been able to counterattack ideologically in a way that had maintained long term stability without having to use crude repression like in 1956 and 1968?

I've been learning about marxist theory, but the ways contraddictions are discussed leaves me pause. Hope some people here can help me understand better.

Sussinctly, for what is relevant to my doubts, here is my current understanding of it:

Contraddictions are what all motion (as in change) in the universe is predicated upon.

Contradictions are relationships wherein tendencies of motion

1) oppose one another

2) are premises of the existence of one another.

Contraddictions exist within all things and between all things.

Why does it have to be a contraddiction that drives motion? What is so illogical about a relationship where there is a singular tendency of motion? I can think of cases that fit that description, for example, two identical charged particles interacting, there will be quantitative changes in speed and relative position as they repel each other, yet what is the contraddiction?

Mao in "on contraddiction" and Lenin in "on the question of dialectics" agree that the contradiction in such cases is between action and reaction. This answer is unsatisfactory, while it's true that it fits part 2) of the definition, and while it's true that the force vectors point in opposite direction, action and reaction are applied to two different object, they are not opposing tendencies of motion in the dialectical sense, failing the arguably more fundimental part 1) of the definition.

Also, Engels argues that all changes of positions are caused by the contraddiction of something being in that place and not in another place. This line of argument seems to be unfalsifiable: if we observe something change from A to B, we can always attribute that change to the contraddiction that A was A and not B. A more straightforward explanation is that there is a singular tendency for position to change based on velocity.

Is there something i'm missing in these examples? Is my understanding of what contraddictions are incorrect?

• Local capitalism is a car
• DotP is workers hijacking the car
• Communism (as Internationalism) is workers bringing the cars together to form a Power Ranger Megazord

Disclaimer: I am a communist.

Why is it that many American communists talk so kindly about the USSR, Albania, DPRK, Cuba, but have some vision of a communist society where the current bourgeois art forms are still consumed just without private industry? Do they not see that the Soviet Union restricted Western content just as the DPRK is actively doing now? Do they not have a sociological understanding of how these art forms influence social cohesion and compromise the unification of the people, leaving them vulnerable to Western decadence?

My belief is that the ideological rituals are still embedded in the cultural memory, you cannot just remove what you don’t like and keep the rest.

These genres will be a nuisance in the days of socialism. Society will be too split between all different forms of culture and identity politics. A state sanctioned music industry has thus always been upheld under the belief that there is no such thing as “art for art’s sake”, because all art is political.

So this is what I don’t get: the contradictory acceptance of bourgeois art and the acceptance of communism, but with the imagination of keeping these bourgeois art forms post-revolution.

If you need a reference for where my criticism comes from you can read Soviet Hegemony of Form: Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More by Alexei Yurchak.

In short, many late Soviet citizens were reinterpreting communist principles to align with the new Western bourgeois art/culture that found its way into the USSR. The argument is that Soviet socialism was decaying but Soviet citizens were oblivious because of this blind reinterpretation that meant to moralize themselves as “good communists”.

In the final breath of the USSR the people were shocked by how fast it was overthrown because they believed Soviet socialism would be forever.

What I see is this reinterpretation happening right here in America. How else do you get from state sanctioned music industry to Tupac Shakur’s “Hit Em Up” is revolutionary music?

I’ll restate that I am a communist. I just need to hear from other comrades how they interpret this contradiction.

There is a fundamental paradox that is created in the base argument for communism, or any system with a centralized collective allocation of surplus.

Communism tries to create a classless society by inherently demanding that a class be created. This new class is the allocators within the collective. A class is defined by a differential power over the disposition of a surplus, not the legal title to it. An allocator who decides where value goes stands in the same structural relation to labor as an owner who extracts it, because both control a surplus the laborer produced but does not receive in full. The allocator will direct some of that surplus to themselves, not by malice or greed, simply because they occupy the position that disposes of it. This is exactly the extraction from the laborer Marx condemned. This paradox is not discussed enough, and it's why centralized collective allocation tends toward authoritarian concentration of power rather than the classless outcome it promises.

Please keep any comments/arguments solely focused on this contradiction as if this paradox is unsolved, then any arguments that come after it are getting ahead of ourselves.

(I'm a staunch anticapitalist, call me a communist even I will gladly espouse this label)

I have always been a communist at heart, but one thing I don't understand is the tendency to go towards authoritarianism. I'm not interested in hearing platitudes such as ''you need authority to run a society''. I understand that. I am more talking about things like the Chinese government cracking down on people protesting against Uyghurs treatment for example or the fact that the population has no say in those kinds of inhumane policies.

This is more the kind of authoritarianism I have problem with rather than the state enforcing rules that make sense through the monopoly of state violence (police) or the state exerting control over private capital.

I also understand that authoritarianism is a big umbrella term and that there are many different kinds of it.

For example China does employ a system of consultative autocracy where the population can have a say in certain things. However, it seems that the extent to which the population is consulted is rather limited to things like : ''Should there be a green space in this area of town?Should there be a school there or there?'' rather than very important societal things like ''how should disruptive minorities be treated?'' (talking about the Uyghurs thing again).

Why can't we have a better economic mode of production in the form of communism (or state capitalism or whatever you wanna call China) AND a mode of governance that is more democratic.

I also understand the workplace and production is authoritarian in nature, and as such must be in control of the masses rather than a fat capitalist pig. You will not see me disagree there.

That being said, I see authoritarian control of the workplace and authoritarian control over social policy as two separate things. Do we really need autocracy to discuss problems such as the place of religion, sexuality, etc. etc. in society? Can we not just relegate autocracy to economic production and the workplace?

Also, an argument I am not interested in is people telling me how western democracies are flawed. They are not flawed because they are democracies (my opinion). They are flawed because they are capitalist, and capitalism exerts control over democratic processes. I feel like this does not discredit democracy so much as it discredits capitalism itself.

In conclusion: Can mode of economic production and the mode of governance be separated as 2 entities. If no, why? If yes, then why the tendency for authoritarianism, and why not democracy AND communism at the same time.

Bonjour, je suis Français et ont à une économie Socio-Démocrate depuis le début du 20ème siècle

On a même des Communistes (Parti Communiste, Lutte Ouvrière, ...) qui ont eu des succès (majorité Parlementaire dans les années 1930, Vincent Auriol Président de la France dans les années 40-50, ...).

Parler de ces pensées politiques à la télévision sont vu comme parler de n'importe quel autre bord politique non problématique.

Voilà, une longue introduction pour savoir pourquoi aux Etats-Unis c'est autant hais

Je sais que il y a eu Stalin, la Corée du Nord, ... mais ce n'est pas une justification totale car ça voudrait dire que la France aussi devrait hair le Communisme ; or, ce sont les dictateurs s qui sont hais, pas la pensée générale ?

The Stanford Prison Experiment is often portrayed as a psychological spectacle from the 1970s, yet in practice it constitutes only a mild foretaste of what occurs when individuals are granted power without corresponding accountability. Zimbardo placed a group of entirely ordinary students in a simulated prison environment, assigned some of them uniforms and batons, and within days they began to behave like minor autocrats. The prisoners suffered emotional breakdowns, the guards adopted increasingly sadistic conduct, and the study was terminated well ahead of schedule. The salient point is not that “evil individuals” committed harmful acts, but that wholly typical people began to rationalise abuse as soon as the situation conferred legitimacy upon it.

This mechanism closely mirrors that which underpinned the mass “people’s tribunals” in China during the Cultural Revolution. No uniforms or psychologists were required; the state merely authorised mass campaigns in which ordinary citizens, often young people, were empowered to subject others to improvised judicial proceedings. Accusations were arbitrary: the wrong political view, the wrong social background, the wrong personal style. Victims were publicly humiliated, assaulted, and in many cases killed. These practices were never concerned with justice, but with ritualised exercises of power in which the collective was granted moral licence to attack the individual. It was, in effect, the Stanford dynamics amplified, with the state actively encouraging them.

Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge extended the same logic to its most extreme conclusion. The “courts” were frequently little more than a procedural formality preceding execution. One could be condemned for wearing glasses, for being literate, or for speaking an unfavoured dialect. The purpose was absolute obedience enforced through absolute arbitrariness. Everyone was to understand that they might become the next victim. The psychological mechanism was essentially identical to that observed in the Stanford experiment, but without safeguards, without ethical oversight, and without any authority prepared to declare that the process had gone too far.

The parallels are stark: social roles shape behaviour; dehumanisation facilitates abuse; group pressure provides moral justification; and when the value of the individual is subsumed within a broader ideological narrative, the usual inhibitions erode. The difference lies only in scale. Stanford was a controlled experiment that was halted in time. The Cultural Revolution and the Khmer Rouge regime were politically sanctioned manifestations of the same dynamics, in which the state not only permitted abuses but demanded them.

Thus, when Stanford is described as something extreme or unique, the essential point is missed. It is not extreme; it is human. It illustrates what occurs when power is concentrated, responsibility dissipates, and the collective acquires the authority to define the worth of the individual. Stanford serves merely as a warning sign. China and Cambodia demonstrate what happens when such warnings are ignored.

What occurs when responsibility dissolves into the collective?
In Stanford, the guards could attribute their actions to “the experiment”.

In China and Cambodia, participants could attribute theirs to “the revolution”.

The central question is: to what extent does brutality arise from the individual’s release from personal moral culpability?

Yesterday I stumbled upon the post on /r/Marxism, where Holodomor was discussed.

Of course, there were a lot of deniers, but what impressed me the most was the statement that yeah, famine is man-made and caused by Stalin’s industrialization and collectivization, that’s why the millions of victims are justified, it is for the Greater Good!

I’m just wondering… let’s say I can agree that capitalism is unfair, my employer is rich simply because he got lucky with the family he was born into, I’m kinda exploited since I need to work hard for living.

But how can this compare to unfairness during “communism”? A person needs to die simply because they were unlucky enough to be born into the peasants family.

So the stakes are “working hard” against “dying”.

And “communism” doesn’t even promise any “Heaven” after death, it is the end of everything for an individual. While capitalist countries let you retire and chill after working hard.

There are literally no benefits for an individual in the “communist” system.

I've been reading a lot of political theory and economic history over the past few months because I'm trying to figure out what a better economic system would actually look like. I'm not coming at this as someone who thinks capitalism is working well. I think many of the standard criticisms of neoliberal capitalism are valid: wealth concentrates, housing becomes increasingly unaffordable, corporations gain enormous political influence, and inequality continues to grow.

What really sent me down this rabbit hole was Albert Einstein's essay Why Socialism? He makes a compelling case against capitalism, but he also ends with a warning that a planned economy doesn't automatically produce freedom or equality, and that an entrenched bureaucracy could emerge instead. That led me to read Rosa Luxemburg, Bakunin, and later Milovan Djilas, who—despite coming from very different traditions—all raised concerns about concentrated political power and the emergence of a new ruling class.

So my first question is:

How do modern socialist models actually prevent that from happening?

I'm not asking what went wrong in the USSR specifically or whether it was "real socialism." I'm asking what institutional safeguards exist today that would prevent a political or managerial elite from gradually consolidating power. If the state is expected to become less important over time, what mechanisms actually make that happen instead of simply assuming it will?

The second issue I keep coming back to is economic coordination.

I've read Hayek's argument that market prices communicate information that no central planning agency can fully process. I've also read responses like market socialism, democratic planning, Project Cybersyn, and arguments that modern computing changes what's possible.

For those who support socialism today, what do you think is the strongest answer to the economic calculation problem? If markets still play some role, where do you draw the line between socialism and a highly regulated market economy?

Part of why I keep coming back to mixed economies is that they seem to recognize that both concentrated corporate power and concentrated state power can become dangerous. Theodore Roosevelt argued in Where We Can Work With Socialists and Where We Cannot Work With Socialists that government should aggressively curb monopolies and protect workers while rejecting comprehensive state ownership. FDR's New Deal took a similar approach by trying to reform capitalism rather than replace it. Today, countries like Norway, Sweden, and Denmark seem to follow a broadly similar model.

Do you see those systems as fundamentally unstable? In other words, do you think regulated capitalism will inevitably drift back toward neoliberalism, regulatory capture, and crony capitalism because those outcomes are built into capitalism itself? Or was the neoliberal turn after the 1970s mainly the result of political choices that could, at least in principle, be reversed?

I'm also curious how people arrived at their own conclusions.

When you were developing your political views, did you mostly read within your own tradition, or did you also spend time reading competing schools of thought and their strongest criticisms? For example, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Bernstein, Hayek, Popper, Orwell, or others.

One thing that surprised me is how much disagreement exists within the left itself. Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyists, anarchists, democratic socialists, council communists, market socialists, left communists, and others often agree on many of capitalism's criticisms while sharply disagreeing about the solution.

Given those disagreements, what ultimately convinced you that your particular tradition offers the strongest institutional solution? Was there a specific book, thinker, historical example, or empirical argument that changed your mind? Did engaging with competing perspectives strengthen your own view, or did you mostly find them unpersuasive?

I'm not looking for a debate over whether the USSR was "real socialism." I'm much more interested in how modern socialist theory responds to these institutional and economic questions, what lessons it takes from both its successes and failures, and what reading you'd recommend to someone who's genuinely trying to understand your perspective.

I'm extremely left leaning, and very progressive, but there are some things about communism that i want well-constructed answers to.

Why do you guys support Stalin? He obviously wasnt as bad of a leader as western propaganda makes him out to be, but he honestly was barely a communist, nor progressive. Mass deportation, recriminalizing homosexuality, and putting in zero effort to transition the USSR into communism, instead just keeping the power to himself.

Communism is very unrealistic and unlikely in todays world. Especially with the existence of things like flock cameras, and zero digital privacy, organizing the proletariat in order to revolt is near impossible. Especially with the advancement in military and technology in developed countries, a revolution seems unlikely. Communism has also not been achieved at a large scale, there are a few communist villages and such but it feels like a dream rather than an achievable goal.

How do you get past the fact that capitalism, while exploitative, is the best working system and has always been. I absolutely hate it, but it naturally breeds innovation, competition, wealth, and development, without the hurdles that must be overcomed within socialism. I havent seen a good objective reason as to how communism could possibly lead people to be innovative and not lazy nor greedy.

Ok a bit of a clickbait title since I'm actually very left leaning, but I want to generate some debate and hopefully bring some light about the Cuban system —wich is far from being socialism or communism, specially now— that isn't tainted by propaganda (or at least not as much, since none of us are inmune to it), either from the side of the US or from the Cuban government. To be honest this is more of an AMA than a "convince me that communism works", since I think in the current world capitalism is by far a bigger problem and debating whether a system that never has been implemented works or not is a waste of time.

A few notes:

- If you are not Cuban and your whole knowledge base on how life here works is based on vibes and propaganda, please don't try to educate me —it get's really tiring really quickly, so I won't answer those comments— but you are welcome instead to say something in the lines of "I've read/heard of X fact, what is true and what is not about it" and I'll answer to the best of my capabilities. Most of the "facts" people know about Cuba, both the good and the bad, are way more nuanced than people think.

- Previous point includes sealioning, please don't do that.

- I'm not a native English speaker and I'm not using any translation software, so please forgive my grammar mistakes, I'm sure they will be plenty. If you can't stand those, you can always write in Spanish and I will gladly switch to it too.

- I, like everybody, am biased and my opinions don't represent anybody but myself. Most Cubans, living here or not, are extremely right winged and anti communist, so just with that I'm already not representing what the majority of Cubans think.

- I will gladly answer personal questions but I won't be too specific. I'm not doxxing myself.

- About the US blockade, embargo, whatever: Yes, it hurts the economy (specially the current oil blockade since January). Yes, it would be really nice if it wouldn't exist. But I'm not here to debate the politics of an external actor; I'm Cuban and my concerns are about what the Cuban government does or fails to do, whether by itself or in response to those external actors. Same with the democracy question: Cuba is not a democracy and that is a fact; and I don't care if the US aren't either (they aren't), my concerns are about my country and my government. So in summary, I won't be answering any "But the US...!" comments, I'm here to talk about Cuba, not the US.

So I guess that's the post, ask me anything and I'll answer when I can.

I come here completely unbiased. I wanted to ask a communist or someone very well versed in the topic about communism. The standpoints, important history and figures that developed and improved or ruined the communist reputation, etc. I write and I need the information from someone who's actually educated on the topic to correctly represent it in my stories. The more information the better.. 😭

Good people won't be in charge of such systems or will lose eventually overtime. The problem is that the human brain works with reward mechanisms. Dopamine gets triggered when we say words such as "Yes, I agree" or revolve our conversations in the area of topics that you agree with. Communism and socialism topics are about fairness, purpose and creating a better future. These topics immediately trigger dopamine when discussed. A manipulator/sociopath will tell you the things you want to hear only even if they don't believe in it themselves. Pretty soon it will result in them getting into power and they will use it to abuse the system because they never really were the type of person meeting the requirements to lead a communist/socialist system.

With the capitalist system your only objective is making money and finding those who you can make money with. The profits and risks can be calculated without involving the human factor, but its weaknesses are that it only works if there are enough jobs to go around and if the product being sold isn't hyped up to scam levels. Capitalism is much more sustainable in the long run, but needs a pramater to focus on improving the comfort of life.

I’m still reading theory so I have a lot to learn. Within socialism, how do you develop productive forces without restoring capitalist relations to get to higher phase communism? Thanks

Just want to hear everyones opinions on the RCA and to those supporters, whatever your opinions on the different branches of Communism?,

Edit: thank you to everyone who commented! I'm personally an Ancon but the RCA just popped up locally and i just wanted to know a bit more about them from an outside perspective. I've decided the most ill probably do is get a monthly paper mailed to me as I like the hand out one the gave.

I have often found through the hallowed halls of Reddit that there seems to be some ambiguity about the role of Religion in a Socialist/Communist society.

So I wanted to ask this community:

Should religion be granted complete autonomy (particularly in faith and morals) in Socialist society?

The big thing I hear is that socialism must abolish commodity production. Therefore the DOTP / Leninist state is not in fact socialist. Now, this seems to me, and I am new to theory, like the “correct” interpretation. If capitalism is an accumulation of commodities, how can you not abolish commodity production to get rid of the capitalist mode of production. Then there’s some stuff about “building productive forces”. Like I get Russia was basically an agrarian society, and so we need to develop the means of production. But I hear a lot people say that Marx said you have to go through capitalism before socialism, which from what I understand is a blatant misinterpreting of what Marx said.

Marxist Leninists from what I see, and I appreciate the people on this Reddit are more educated, hid behind the defence of leftcoms being armchair theorists and that Marxist Leninists actually do stuff. Who knows