No, Capitalism is just one Mode of Production, a relatively new one, in a long chain of them. It isn’t the first, and will not be the last unless we nuke ourselves to death or Climate Change kills us all.

You can’t exploit capitalists. Hate alone is not enough.

oh yea i agree with you, my point was that western socdem nations (like scandinavia, for example) still exploit/depend on the exploitation of the global south

Don’t forget privatizing an IP that was only made possible through government funded research. Literally the only “innovation” jobs made was taking a bunch of existing tech and being like, “what if we made a media player that is also a phone with a touch screen”

And don’t get me started on how much I fucking hate touch screens. Whoever decided all cash registers should be touch screen only and took away my 10-key is going to beg for me to kill them once I am done with them.

Incredible mind palace.

Oh that’s gold.

I’m very interested in how you think we should abolish capital relations?

Off the bat, I do usually agree with you more than disagree with you. I’m not saying anything out of a sense of malice or a desire to be “correct.” However, I am entirely confident in my analysis here.

You’re correct in saying that I’m a Marxist-Leninist, as are the majority of Marxists worldwide. The fact that Marxist-Leninists agree on this subject does not make it revisionist, nor does it misrepresent Marx.

Marx indeed did not say that Public Ownership alone makes something Socialist. Quite right, in fact, many Capitalist states like the US have sizable public sectors. However, at the same time, Capitalism is not Private Ownership. Capitalism itself can only exist as an interconnected system, trying to slice systems up and analyze each slice discretely is an error the pre-Dialectical Matetialists made, and it is an error because it obfuscates the movements and trajectories of the system.

The abolition of production for exchange-value is indeed the goal. However, saying any system that has not yet managed to do so is not Marxist, or not Socialist, is wrong. It may not be upper-level Communism that Marx describes as a future society, but in fact, Marx would call it “Lower-Stage Communism.” We can observe this in Principles of Communism:

Question 17 : Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?

Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.

Engels was not in opposition to Marx on this. You say that it’s idealism to say that we cannot simply outlaw private property, but then say we need to abolish capital relations. How do you do that without abolishing private property? You cannot, through fiat, declare Communism. Modes of Production are material things, not just agreements between individuals, the reason the Utopian Socialists such as Robert Owen, Saint-Simon, and Fourier failed is because they tried to create their systems through Utopia building, not through transformation of existing society along the laws of materialism. Marx himself explains in Critique of the Gotha Programme:

But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but itself life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

Marx clearly implies that in lower-stage Communism, contradictions from Capitalism still exist. Marxists post-Lenin call this transitional stage “Socialism,” but the mechanics are still quite clear.

We build Communism through Socialism. That is, by revolution, smashing the bourgeois state, replacing it with a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and firstly nationalizing all key industry and developed, large firms. Then, the process is to build up the productive forces as rapidly as possible, and that means the use of manipulated market mechanics at the lower-developed sectors, and public ownership at the higher, until the markets themselves do what Marx already observed and create an economy pretty purely of publicly owned firms. It is at this point the value form can gradually be erased, and higher-stage Communism built towards.

In the end, I maintain that it’s classically Marxist because it is. Everything Marx wrote indicates this to be the general process he described. We can even observe the measures he and Engels proposed in the Manifesto of the Communist Party:

Nevertheless in the 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 right 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 p!an.

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

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction[50] between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.[51]

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, etc., etc.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally,[52] and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

We can clearly see that even by Marx’s original measures, markets would remain, and it would be the job of the Proletarian state to gradually appropriate Capital to the degree it develops, not simply go through a short restructuring period and then achieve full Communism. Such would be idealist Utopia-building.

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Americans really don’t understand that they aren’t the only country on earth

That is not the situation today, where most Americans have NO retirement savings. Unless you’re redefining what capitalism IS, then that’s a problem caused by the people in charge (oligarchs).

Bananas were cheap too… because Western [capitalist!!!] imperialism supported fascist death squads in Latin America who sold out their country to United Fruit [a capitalist corporation]. It’s a whole system of oppression, not just the WASPs you see on Mad Men reruns.

You are the one who is deeply confused.

Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. Thinking there was no oligarchy when C. Wright Mills was writing The Power Elite shows that you are not only confused about economic theory, but misinformed about the history of the US as well.

You literally do not know what capitalism is. Capitalism is not commerce or economy, capitalism is a social relation system that is defined by private ownership of the means of production and prioritizes commodity production for profit by way of wage labor and class antagonism. Maybe you should read more before you state your factually incorrect statements.

The erosion of safety nets is a product of ever-further monopolization and the dissolution of the USSR, as well as the liberation of many colonies. I am not redefining Capitalism, the Capitalism we have today is the natural following point of earlier Capitalism.

Same underlying system, different levels and scale.

And then the capital started buying the politicians.

So back then capitalism had working colonialism and now many colonies freed themselves, and now we are the ones getting exploited

Why don’t you move to Nigeria then?

just because we have shiny new inventions every year doesnt mean its working for everyone. the entire system of capitalism is based on taking advantage of the poor. to the point of killing them directly and indirectly en mass, through war and poverty related illness. so that the rich can own more property and assets.

its a horrible system.

You think married people have it way worse?

That’s the normal stance on Lemmy.

It was founded by communists, so you’d better get used to it

I’ve been pro-PRC for years, but more people have started shifting their opinions based on the latest trade war and how China is standing up to US bullying.

Lemmy is developed by Communists, there are going to be Communists.

We’ve been here for, like, four years…

The PRC is Socialist, large firms and key industries are firmly in the public sector, while the private sector is largely cooperatives, sole proprietorships, and small firms. This is classically Marxist. I elaborate more on this here.

Economic growth is merely one vector. The PRC saw the largest reduction in poverty on the planet, has strong democratic control from the people, very high approval rates, high confidence in improving conditions, and regularly increasing purchasing power for workers. The PRC is also leading the green revolution, and isn’t Imperialist like the liberal countries you claim to work so well.

Yes?

The PRC is Socialist, large firms and key industries are firmly in the public sector, while the private sector is largely cooperatives, sole proprietorships, and small firms. This is classically Marxist. I elaborate more on this here.

The USA has one party: the capitalist party. They do not represent you, they represent corporate interests. Your vote doesn’t even really matter because of the electoral college, and other racist relics such as the Senate, giving ridiculous power to to just a handful of “swing voters”.

Voting once every 4 years for either the capitalist war monger or the other capitalist war monger, while they both ban 3rd party candidates from the ballot, does not make the USA “democratic”.

Edit: also who cares if it’s one party? In each of these cases the party has brought the entire population out of abject poverty (usually the result of capitalism exploiting them), increased education surpassing the USA, brought healthcare to all, have higher home ownership rates than the USA, etc.

Objective quality of life measurements all surpass the USA.

https://youtu.be/FEHYeeRCtVI

Having one party doesn’t mean you aren’t democratic. Democracy is about fulfilling the needs of the people based on their input, ie it’s more important that the people be able to impact policy than party. In the US, you can change parties, but not the policy, in countries like the PRC, you can change the policy, but not the party.

There is no such thing as capitalism regulated with socialist policies. That’s ridiculous and only shows that you don’t know what those terms mean

There are a few clarifications to be made and some fallacies in your understanding of communism and socialism here. I’m not the one to clear all of this up, because I’m not going to put the effort and time needed into these subjects, but I’ll try to guide you in the direction of some resources to help.

Some quick clarifications:

Socialism and communism are the same thing. Communism is the end goal, but you cannot just jump directly to communism from capitalism, so we fall the transition period socialism. Communists often use the terms interchangeably, but any actual differentiation is a distinction of progress, not the goals of the project.

Communism is no more extreme than socialism and politics are not a horseshoe or circle where the far ends are the worst. This is a thought-terminating notion meant to keep you boxed within the status quo so that those who are currently in power stay in power, meaning you will remain relatively powerless. The same thing goes for trying to stay in the middle of a conflict: you end up not taking a side, meaning you remain on the side of the status quo, meaning you stay on the side of the oppressor. Your oppressor. As much as people argue communism is extreme, communists can argue that “the middle” or “liberalism” or “other leftists” are extreme. These arguments are always made for the purpose of getting you to stop thinking about those topics, to stop considering their validity. They are not trying to convince you those are wrong, but that they are not worth even considering. I implore you to do the opposite: do some reading and interact with what “extremists” are saying in good faith, then decide what you believe. I’m sure you’ll agree with some parts and not with others. We are all humans and most of us are of the same class. The “extremism” of communists is that we say working class people should run the world and the rich leeches should be oppressed in a sense that they cannot oppress anyone else through the use of their extreme wealth. We want to flip the system on its head to use an overly-simplistic metaphor.

Capitalism cannot be mixed with socialist policies. What you are probably referring to as socialist policies are actually welfare programs and state regulation . This is what we call social democracy, which is still capitalism. Socialism is differentiated more by who owns the means of production, how the economy is organized, and what class is in control of the state. That aside, socialists think social democracy is insufficient to curb the problems of capitalism because you don’t remove the roots of the problem. Most of the successes of social democracy in addressing wealth disparity and living standards are the result of countries trying to stave of socialist revolutions at home due to their workers seeing the success of nearby socialist republics in improving the quality of life of their people. These are capitalist concessions and if you look at the social democracies that exist in Europe, you’ll see that all of these concessions started getting rolled back AFTER the fall of the USSR. They were temporary relief (at home, not in their colonies), but the profit motive always demands more. If capitalism can’t steal enough from the global south, it will turn inward and eat itself like the US and UK are currently doing.

On entrepreneurs…most of the time people want to show the benefit of entrepreneurs, it is in terms of innovation and small businesses, so I’m assuming this is your point? Innovation and entrepreneurs do not disappear under socialism, but the way they function does. Innovation does not always need to be driven by profit motive as demonstrated within the USSR, but there is arguably some room for profit motive driving innovation in a mixed economy like China’s. The main benefit of socialism is that innovation is not at the whims of the market, which tends to act as if it is allergic to innovation, ultimately stifling it rather than nurturing it. Small businesses (and thus entrepreneurs) still exist in many socialist countries and will not be nationalized unless they grow quite big or become central to controlling an important part of the economy. In some ways it can even be easier to start a thriving business because you are less at risk of being stamped out by the “health competition” of a mega-corporation with a monopoly on an entire industrial sector. Those get nationalized, fixing the money attracts more money problem. If you remove the profit motive, this power can no longer be abused for profit. Corruption can happen under any system and has to be handled case-by-case, but you’ll find socialist countries have much harsher penalties for corruption to prevent it, unlike a paltry fine that is the cost of doing business. Jail time or up to the death penalty can be applied based upon the severity and circumstances of the crime. Vietnam and China have applied this last one to large-scale corruption within the last year whereas in liberal democracies, multimillion or even billion dollar fraud cases are widespread and normal with little to no repercussions. In some cases, it is even legal!

On education…if you want more, there are many sources available in many formats. I suggest Dessalines’ crash course of socialism and his reading list but there are plenty of others on here who provide lists worthy of mention (but their links are harder for me to look up). Prolewiki is like Wikipedia for socialism by socialists. Search a topic there that you want to know more about. You can also ask for resources on specific topics in lemmy.ml, lemmygrad.ml, and hexbear.net and you will probably get more resources than you care to consume in a year, so long as you approach them in good faith. People in these communities will only troll you if they think you are trolling them. The efforts some of them will go to in order to educate others is ridiculous (in a good way).

I hope this helps.

How do you determine where an "extreme " is on a circle? Democracy was considered extreme once

Entrepreneurs are usually known as useless scammers in my line of work

You can’t force your system onto every society and culture on earth, as Capitalism has done, when your system is Anarchism.

If you maintain public control over the large firms and industries, and the proletariat controls the state, you remain on the Socialist road.

Agree, there has to be DOTP directly after the revolution which has to retain some capitalist features, mostly for economic survival purposes.

However, once the military struggle against capitalists are over and economy is sufficiently reorganized, a country has to quickly abolish the value form and actually turn to a socialist mode of production, else it risks either backpedaling to capitalism and/or turning revisionist. This is precisely what happened to USSR, given how they couldn’t transition to socialist mode of production due to their peasant problem + Stalin’s delusions of “Socialism in one state”.

If there’s an active maintenance in post-revolutionary period of capitalist mode of production, then the country is capitalist even if the production is nationalized or owned by workers.

Markets themselves are not necessarily Capitalism.

Historically markets predate Capitalism, so yes, but they’re never socialist or communist given how socialist mode of production does away with commodity production. If commodity production is abolished, then commodity exchange (markets) can no longer exist. This does mean that market socialism is capitalist as commodity production remains, the law of value remains, all that’s different when compared to Capitalism is that the state regulates it which doesn’t magically make it socialist.