Let me put it this way: I’ve never met a communist who argued that it was possible to bring about communism nonviolently, much less that it was desirable or even essential to do so in order for it to succeed. It’s always “we may have to do a little bit of violence at first, but after that, we’ll all be nice a peaceful, because all our problems will have been solved and there’ll be no reason to be violent anymore.”
I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that. Like I said, violence begets more violence. Once you agree that it could potentially be a solution, there is no reason not to use it when push comes to shove, that’s why there will never be an end to it.
Also, my point about ACAB wasn’t that you personally support it, just that communists overwhelming hate the police and see them as a tool of fascist oppression when they’re in the hands of capitalists, but as warriors of peace when they’re in the hands of communists. Their violent enforcers: corrupt and evil. Our violent enforcers: stunning and brave. Basically it all comes down to arguing fairness is a matter of who is on top. The problem with that is that power always corrupts, not matter how good its intentions. I know that’s likely not going to convince you, but I’m only explaining my point of view on why I don’t find communism very convincing.
Have you noticed that almost every argument you have is based entirely on what other things you think communists think, as opposed to anything about what communism actually is?
Your entire ACAB argument is totally unrelated to both me and communism other than the fact that you’ve decided that’s what communists think.
Your chain of reasoning was:
(1) Communists hate police (???)
(2) Communists only hate police because they don’t work for them
(3) Police have power
(4) Power corrupts
=> (5) Communism is bad
1 & 2 are both just random bullshit you’ve decided is true about communists
3 is true
4 is true
5 is totally unrelated to 1, 2, 3 & 4
The problem with that is that power always corrupts, not matter how good its intentions
Well yes, that’s kinda the entire concept of communism. A huge part of its goal to equitably distribute wealth is that it reduces the power imbalance caused by the huge difference in wealth in capitalist economies.
I don’t now man, 2020 isn’t that long ago, I remember the protests fairly vividly, along with the demands for dismantling any and all police.
Unless you’re going to tell me those weren’t real communists. In which case, believe me, I’ve heard that one before.
So no, I don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that communists hate the police, if only, as you admit, because they don’t work for them, not based on any principle.
Also, I didn’t say that that from 1-4 follows that communism is bad, just that it is no better than the capitalism it seeks to replace, because it does nothing to address the violence it claims is fundamental to capitalist oppression. It’s more accurate to say that communism is dumb because it engages in magical thinking, i.e. the belief that violence can be good if only it was being done by the right people.
Yes, perhaps things would get better for some people for some time. But in the end, it will always suffer from the same type of corruption as any other violence-based system, so there is no reason to believe it would be preferable to what we have now. It will just end up perpetuating the same cycle of violence that it claims is at the root of all of our problems.
You’re still pulling shit out of your arse - your proof that communists hate police is that some people (not communists, just some people) protested against police 4 years ago??? That had nothing to do with communism whatsoever. You clearly don’t understand that not all leftists are communists, and not all leftists are ACAB.
So you’ve decided that a ~200 year old economic system is actually about an unrelated movement that’s happened in the last decade.
COMMUNISM IS NOT ABOUT POLICING. It’s an economic system based on the abolition of private wealth.
It doesn’t say whether police are good, or when violence is appropriate.
“Communism is dumb because there is violence and communism doesn’t solve that violence”
Eating lunch doesn’t solve all violence either, but you still do it.
This is the shit that frustrates me to no end. I’m not even saying we should switch to a communist system. I’m saying we should put enough consideration into the economic concepts to pick out what works well and what doesn’t in a modern society.
But you’re so wrapped up in your personal imagination of what communists think that you’re entirely incapable of thinking about its propositions at all.
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.
![[META] Never change, lemmy.ml](https://i.imgur.com/1pxAyiq.jpg){kind=link}
Let me put it this way: I’ve never met a communist who argued that it was possible to bring about communism nonviolently, much less that it was desirable or even essential to do so in order for it to succeed. It’s always “we may have to do a little bit of violence at first, but after that, we’ll all be nice a peaceful, because all our problems will have been solved and there’ll be no reason to be violent anymore.”
I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that. Like I said, violence begets more violence. Once you agree that it could potentially be a solution, there is no reason not to use it when push comes to shove, that’s why there will never be an end to it.
Also, my point about ACAB wasn’t that you personally support it, just that communists overwhelming hate the police and see them as a tool of fascist oppression when they’re in the hands of capitalists, but as warriors of peace when they’re in the hands of communists. Their violent enforcers: corrupt and evil. Our violent enforcers: stunning and brave. Basically it all comes down to arguing fairness is a matter of who is on top. The problem with that is that power always corrupts, not matter how good its intentions. I know that’s likely not going to convince you, but I’m only explaining my point of view on why I don’t find communism very convincing.
Have you noticed that almost every argument you have is based entirely on what other things you think communists think, as opposed to anything about what communism actually is?
Your entire ACAB argument is totally unrelated to both me and communism other than the fact that you’ve decided that’s what communists think.
Your chain of reasoning was:
(1) Communists hate police (???)
(2) Communists only hate police because they don’t work for them
(3) Police have power
(4) Power corrupts
=> (5) Communism is bad
1 & 2 are both just random bullshit you’ve decided is true about communists
3 is true
4 is true
5 is totally unrelated to 1, 2, 3 & 4
Well yes, that’s kinda the entire concept of communism. A huge part of its goal to equitably distribute wealth is that it reduces the power imbalance caused by the huge difference in wealth in capitalist economies.
I don’t now man, 2020 isn’t that long ago, I remember the protests fairly vividly, along with the demands for dismantling any and all police.
Unless you’re going to tell me those weren’t real communists. In which case, believe me, I’ve heard that one before.
So no, I don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that communists hate the police, if only, as you admit, because they don’t work for them, not based on any principle.
Also, I didn’t say that that from 1-4 follows that communism is bad, just that it is no better than the capitalism it seeks to replace, because it does nothing to address the violence it claims is fundamental to capitalist oppression. It’s more accurate to say that communism is dumb because it engages in magical thinking, i.e. the belief that violence can be good if only it was being done by the right people.
Yes, perhaps things would get better for some people for some time. But in the end, it will always suffer from the same type of corruption as any other violence-based system, so there is no reason to believe it would be preferable to what we have now. It will just end up perpetuating the same cycle of violence that it claims is at the root of all of our problems.
You’re still pulling shit out of your arse - your proof that communists hate police is that some people (not communists, just some people) protested against police 4 years ago??? That had nothing to do with communism whatsoever. You clearly don’t understand that not all leftists are communists, and not all leftists are ACAB.
So you’ve decided that a ~200 year old economic system is actually about an unrelated movement that’s happened in the last decade.
COMMUNISM IS NOT ABOUT POLICING. It’s an economic system based on the abolition of private wealth.
It doesn’t say whether police are good, or when violence is appropriate.
“Communism is dumb because there is violence and communism doesn’t solve that violence”
Eating lunch doesn’t solve all violence either, but you still do it.
This is the shit that frustrates me to no end. I’m not even saying we should switch to a communist system. I’m saying we should put enough consideration into the economic concepts to pick out what works well and what doesn’t in a modern society.
But you’re so wrapped up in your personal imagination of what communists think that you’re entirely incapable of thinking about its propositions at all.
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.