You realize that getting upset over this isn’t helping to prove your point, right? If anything, it proves you’re out of arguments and you think you can bully me into into accepting your point of view.
Sorry, not going to happen.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought Marx passionately and repeatedly made the case that violence and inequality in a capitalist system are intrinsically connected, i.e. that a capitalist system requires violence in order to enforce and maintain the inequality that is present. But you (and Marx) also say that communists can (and should) violence to bring about equality.
My question, therefore, is simply this: if inequality is the result of violence, how can communism ever hope to achieve equality in the future by using the same means that it claims causes inequality in the present? That’s simply fighting fire with fire. If their violence justifies our violence, our violence will justify theirs. And on and on it goes. No amount of violence will ever stop violence. It just won’t.
This is why I’m frustrated - you work entirely on the assumption that violence is an integral part of communism, but that’s really not the case, at least not in a way distinct from how it can be necessary to maintain stability in any other system. For example, physically restraining a murderer to arrest them is appropriate, but that is not as a result of communism or capitalism, but as a functional requirement for the prevention of further violence.
While moving from one political system to another frequently involves violence, that doesn’t mean it’s an integral part of the system itself. For example, the transition to democracy from absolute monarchy involved violence in almost every example, but violence isn’t part of democracy itself.
But my frustration isn’t that you don’t have the same point of view as me - in fact I’ve actively avoided stating my own stance on economic systems - it’s that you repeatedly use strawman arguments to avoid actually engaging with the economic concepts themselves.
violence and inequality in a capitalist system are intrinsically connected
You got this right, in that the idea is that inequality is enforced through violence. But you assume there’s some consensus on when it should be used to push back against inequality, and you inexplicably seem to believe that this consensus is “always”. But this really isn’t the case.
That’s where you wrong, because violence IS part of democracy, since the majority gets to inflict its will on the minority (or at least choose representatives who will do so on their behalf) via the use of the police, who are authorized to use any violence necessary in order to get people to comply with the laws.
If communism doesn’t have any plans for achieving their goals without the use of police (or violent enforcers by any other name), then it stands to reason that it will just be violence-based as that which is it seeks to replace, and therefore just as prone to causing inequality among people, regardless of its intentions.
As I said before, violence will never lead to peace, at best you will get a temporary truce whenever people are tired of fighting. But it will always be prone to erupt again. That’s why I don’t support communism. And yes, I don’t support democracy, monarchy, or dictatorship either, for the same reason.
You’re working on the assumption that violence just creates random inequality whenever it occurs, rather than that the use of violence in our current system is a tool used with intent to maintain the status quo.
Deciding we shouldn’t make any change to our economic system because police would still be necessary is, frankly, an absurd stance to take. To be clear, communism is not an alternative to democracy, it’s an economic not political system, though of course its ideals do align with democracy.
So you don’t support any political system? Or do you have some magic solution in which everyone magically lives in harmony?
You’re working on the assumption that violence just creates random inequality whenever it occurs, rather than that the use of violence in our current system is a tool used with intent to maintain the status quo.
Well, you’re working on the assumption that violence CAN be used to create both inequality and equality, it just depends on who is using it. Since it’s obviously nonsensical to argue that it’s literally the person that’s making the difference (otherwise, monarchy could potentially do just as good a job at creating or maintaining equality as communism could), it must be the intention behind the use of violence that makes the difference.
That leads to the unproven assertion that it is the intention of capitalism to create unjust inequality, when instead the intention is to allow people to freely choose their employment or source of income based on what they do best, and reward people based on how much they contribute to society.
Sure, you can say that maybe that used to be the case at one point and it’s all gone out of whack since then, but that would only prove that intention doesn’t guarantee outcome, hence there would be no reason to assume that communism would have any better chance at creating a better outcome for everyone in the long run.
Deciding we shouldn’t make any change to our economic system because police would still be necessary is, frankly, an absurd stance to take. To be clear, communism is not an alternative to democracy, it’s an economic not political system, though of course its ideals do align with democracy.
If communism isn’t a political system, why does it require a revolution in order to implement? If it’s only about economics, then it should be possible to implement on a smaller scale (say, a single company) in any political system. And if it is so clearly superior to capitalism, then such a company would outperform its competitors and naturally lead to a proliferation of communism that way, because most or all of its competitors would end up adopting it. Yet you never see any communists arguing for that sort of approach, it’s always “smash everything with fist first and then rebuild from the ashes”. That’s why I can’t help but feel like violence is, in fact, the whole point.
So you don’t support any political system? Or do you have some magic solution in which everyone magically lives in harmony?
Neither. I don’t support any political system because politics is simply arguing about who gets to point the gun at whom. Any political solution to anything always involves violence. And I don’t have a magical solution either because the only alternative I see is to educate people in order to help them realize this, in the hopes that one day, enough people will see that there can, in fact, never be a political solution without violence, and therefore stop looking for such solutions and instead work together to try and resolve their disputes on their own instead of looking for another powerful man with a gun to get them what’s theirs.
if it is so clearly superior to capitalism, then such a company would outperform its competitors and naturally lead to a proliferation of communism that way, because most or all of its competitors would end up adopting it
Tell me you have absolutely no idea what an economic system is without saying it. It’s not a method for optimising the amount of money that can be squeezed out of a business.
I don’t support any political system
Okay, well there’s no point discussing them ever I guess, cool, back to feudalism everyone. Thank goodness you saved us from wasting our time trying to find a system that ensures quality of life.
To be perfectly honest with you, it’s immensely clear that you really don’t have even the most basic idea of what communism is, but you have decided that whatever it is, it’s terrible. There’s no point having a discussion if you refuse to actually understand the subject of the discussion.
Let’s leave these here - you’re clearly not interested in actually considering the concepts, so there’s nothing to be gained from this. It’ll save us both a lot of wasted further time.
![[META] Never change, lemmy.ml](https://i.imgur.com/1pxAyiq.jpg){kind=link}
You realize that getting upset over this isn’t helping to prove your point, right? If anything, it proves you’re out of arguments and you think you can bully me into into accepting your point of view.
Sorry, not going to happen.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought Marx passionately and repeatedly made the case that violence and inequality in a capitalist system are intrinsically connected, i.e. that a capitalist system requires violence in order to enforce and maintain the inequality that is present. But you (and Marx) also say that communists can (and should) violence to bring about equality.
My question, therefore, is simply this: if inequality is the result of violence, how can communism ever hope to achieve equality in the future by using the same means that it claims causes inequality in the present? That’s simply fighting fire with fire. If their violence justifies our violence, our violence will justify theirs. And on and on it goes. No amount of violence will ever stop violence. It just won’t.
This is why I’m frustrated - you work entirely on the assumption that violence is an integral part of communism, but that’s really not the case, at least not in a way distinct from how it can be necessary to maintain stability in any other system. For example, physically restraining a murderer to arrest them is appropriate, but that is not as a result of communism or capitalism, but as a functional requirement for the prevention of further violence.
While moving from one political system to another frequently involves violence, that doesn’t mean it’s an integral part of the system itself. For example, the transition to democracy from absolute monarchy involved violence in almost every example, but violence isn’t part of democracy itself.
But my frustration isn’t that you don’t have the same point of view as me - in fact I’ve actively avoided stating my own stance on economic systems - it’s that you repeatedly use strawman arguments to avoid actually engaging with the economic concepts themselves.
You got this right, in that the idea is that inequality is enforced through violence. But you assume there’s some consensus on when it should be used to push back against inequality, and you inexplicably seem to believe that this consensus is “always”. But this really isn’t the case.
That’s where you wrong, because violence IS part of democracy, since the majority gets to inflict its will on the minority (or at least choose representatives who will do so on their behalf) via the use of the police, who are authorized to use any violence necessary in order to get people to comply with the laws.
If communism doesn’t have any plans for achieving their goals without the use of police (or violent enforcers by any other name), then it stands to reason that it will just be violence-based as that which is it seeks to replace, and therefore just as prone to causing inequality among people, regardless of its intentions.
As I said before, violence will never lead to peace, at best you will get a temporary truce whenever people are tired of fighting. But it will always be prone to erupt again. That’s why I don’t support communism. And yes, I don’t support democracy, monarchy, or dictatorship either, for the same reason.
You’re working on the assumption that violence just creates random inequality whenever it occurs, rather than that the use of violence in our current system is a tool used with intent to maintain the status quo.
Deciding we shouldn’t make any change to our economic system because police would still be necessary is, frankly, an absurd stance to take. To be clear, communism is not an alternative to democracy, it’s an economic not political system, though of course its ideals do align with democracy.
So you don’t support any political system? Or do you have some magic solution in which everyone magically lives in harmony?
Well, you’re working on the assumption that violence CAN be used to create both inequality and equality, it just depends on who is using it. Since it’s obviously nonsensical to argue that it’s literally the person that’s making the difference (otherwise, monarchy could potentially do just as good a job at creating or maintaining equality as communism could), it must be the intention behind the use of violence that makes the difference.
That leads to the unproven assertion that it is the intention of capitalism to create unjust inequality, when instead the intention is to allow people to freely choose their employment or source of income based on what they do best, and reward people based on how much they contribute to society.
Sure, you can say that maybe that used to be the case at one point and it’s all gone out of whack since then, but that would only prove that intention doesn’t guarantee outcome, hence there would be no reason to assume that communism would have any better chance at creating a better outcome for everyone in the long run.
If communism isn’t a political system, why does it require a revolution in order to implement? If it’s only about economics, then it should be possible to implement on a smaller scale (say, a single company) in any political system. And if it is so clearly superior to capitalism, then such a company would outperform its competitors and naturally lead to a proliferation of communism that way, because most or all of its competitors would end up adopting it. Yet you never see any communists arguing for that sort of approach, it’s always “smash everything with fist first and then rebuild from the ashes”. That’s why I can’t help but feel like violence is, in fact, the whole point.
Neither. I don’t support any political system because politics is simply arguing about who gets to point the gun at whom. Any political solution to anything always involves violence. And I don’t have a magical solution either because the only alternative I see is to educate people in order to help them realize this, in the hopes that one day, enough people will see that there can, in fact, never be a political solution without violence, and therefore stop looking for such solutions and instead work together to try and resolve their disputes on their own instead of looking for another powerful man with a gun to get them what’s theirs.
Wrong comment mate
My bad. I fixed it.
Tell me you have absolutely no idea what an economic system is without saying it. It’s not a method for optimising the amount of money that can be squeezed out of a business.
Okay, well there’s no point discussing them ever I guess, cool, back to feudalism everyone. Thank goodness you saved us from wasting our time trying to find a system that ensures quality of life.
To be perfectly honest with you, it’s immensely clear that you really don’t have even the most basic idea of what communism is, but you have decided that whatever it is, it’s terrible. There’s no point having a discussion if you refuse to actually understand the subject of the discussion.
Let’s leave these here - you’re clearly not interested in actually considering the concepts, so there’s nothing to be gained from this. It’ll save us both a lot of wasted further time.