I think they're making the point that societies always change, which I would agree with. My argument isn't that there is a process from capitalism to fascism and then that's the endpoint, there is obviously no endpoint to society, it'll always change and grow -- after all, societies are living things. But I strongly believe that there is a path towards a truly free and equitable society - a utopia, if you want - and that path necessitates the end of capitalism.
bearboiblake
joined 1 year ago
Okay, you know what, believe whatever you want. I can lead you to water, whether you drink or not is your prerogative.
Much love and solidarity, and I hope you have a great day.
what about the USSR
There's no doubt that the USSR was extremely authoritarian, for sure. I'd say that was due to a variety of complex reasons, but foremost among them would be that there wasn't a social revolution, there was a military revolution which replaced the existing ruling class with a different ruling class, rather than actually eliminating the ruling class altogether. The levers of power were maintained, and abused for personal gain, until capitalism was restored - and now we have the capitalist Russian Federation. The abolition of capitalism isn't a magic bullet, and I'm not arguing that it is - but that does not change the fact that capitalism does inevitably lead towards fascism.
I’ve yet to find a society that is completely stable and has no driving forces pushing it towards tyranny of some form.
Well, I'd be glad to introduce you to anarchism. For what it's worth, too, I'd say that Cuba demonstrates a pretty good model of a socialist society, despite the constant US terrorist attacks and interventions/blockades -- quality of life, literacy rates, health care, etc. have all hugely improved, they have cures for lung cancer and Alzheimers in Cuba that we don't even have in the West. Again, it's not perfect, and there are no good states, but out of all of them, I'd say Cuba probably comes the closest.
The so-called socialist countries still have capitalist economies. And yes, you're right, that a truly socialist society would indeed need to defend itself against its enemies - i.e. capitalists - but under a capitalist system, the system itself inevitably trends towards fascism for the reasons I outlined in great detail in my comment.
Fascism is inherently a very fragile and unstable system -- that's why the fascist need for control and authoritarianism is so urgent, because the ideology is so unnatural. So, yes, fascism does indeed inevitably collapse, because it's fundamentally a suicide cult. but if that collapse leads back to capitalism with reforms, then it'll just cycle back towards fascism again.
The fact is that we either need to abolish capitalism or we will constantly be fighting against the tide of fascism. You can take issue with my points all you want. If money can be exchanged for goods and services, then democracy is for sale. Reforms can, and have been, gutted. Unions can be bought. Wake the fuck up and stop coping.
This thread inspired me to create a post about it on the YouShouldKnow community, but I'll quote a section of the Wikipedia article about denazification here:
Very soon after the program started, due to the emergence of the Cold War, the western powers and the United States in particular began to lose interest in the program, somewhat mirroring the Reverse Course in American-occupied Japan.
Denazification was carried out in an increasingly lenient and lukewarm way until being officially abolished in 1951. The American government soon came to view the program as ineffective and counterproductive. Additionally, the program was highly unpopular in West Germany, where many Nazis maintained positions of power.
Denazification efforts were abandoned in Germany, nazi scientists were recruited by Allied nations (especially the US) and the first secretary of NATO was a nazi.
Fascism was never defeated. We must abolish capitalism.
How does capitalism inevitably lead to fascism?
Basically, the issue with capitalism is that the more wealth you have, the easier it is for you to make more money. And since money can be used to buy goods, services and influence, there is always a way to use money to gain more political and social power. With that political and social power, you can push society and the legal system in the direction you want to go. So you can use your wealth to gain power, and then you can use your power to change laws and society so that you can make even more wealth and power. It’s a positive feedback loop.
Obviously, though, if the billionaires and ruling class are accumulating more and more of our society’s wealth, that inevitably means that there’s less for everyone else to go around - therefore, working class people feel poorer and poorer. Meanwhile, the economy is going absolutely great for rich people, so inflation continues to go up - everything gets more expensive, but wages don’t increase. The wealthy just keep more and more of the wealth for themselves. To accumulate more and more wealth, they change the laws so that they can avoid paying taxes, so public services collapse. Politicians are lobbied to ensure that public funds are diverted away from where it is most needed - housing, healthcare, transportation, infrastructure - and instead into industries where their class interests most benefit from it, such as weapons manufacturing and extractive industries such as fossil fuels and mining.
The working class are bound to notice that their lives are getting shittier and shittier, and if that situation is left unchecked, the working class would realize that the ruling class are fucking them over, rise up, and overthrow their rulers. Obviously, the ruling class need to do something about this, but there’s no solution that the ruling class can offer. They’re causing all of the problems, to fix them they’d have to give up some of their wealth and power - and that’s not something they’re going to do. So they need to find someone else to blame the problems we have in society on. Unfortunately, though, no matter who they blame the problems on, and no matter what they do to “fix” it, the issue will continue to persist, because the material conditions underlying the issues are, very intentionally, never addressed.
So, the conundrum returns: The ruling class said that minority A caused all of the problems, minority A is persecuted and oppressed, but society doesn’t actually get any better. Either the problem wasn’t minority A, or minority A just hasn’t been oppressed enough yet. So the ruling class can either escalate the oppression, or they can shift the focus to another minority group. The division continues to escalate in terms of how vitriolic and extreme it is, and it also continues to divide the working class into smaller and smaller groups.
To get the working class to buy into this hateful message, they need to take advantage of our worst instincts, and one of those instincts is the in-group bias. The majority are manipulated into being suspicious, then intolerant, then hateful, then violent, then genocidal, towards whatever the targeted minority of the day is. Anything that can be used to divide the working class - sexuality, nationality, immigration status, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, age, all of these will be used as wedges to keep the working class split apart and not working together, because they know that if the working class actually unite against them, they are completely and truly fucked.
That’s exactly how fascism manifests. It’s because it’s possible for people to accumulate power through wealth. This is why capitalism must be abolished. If we do not abolish capitalism, fascism will always return. It’s just a matter of time.
No you dont understand Iran was literally SEVENTEEN SECONDS away from striking Skokie, IL with a nuclear ICMB tho trust bro /s
It's not your fault but I hate that you're right. We live in the fucking torment nexus timeline.
So that means he is gonna attack Kharg Island, doesn't it? Or launch a ground invasion elsewhere in Iran?
He likes to do this stupid transparent 4D chess stuff to try and keep people off balance
Do not try to determine which countries are good, that is impossible.
Instead, try to realize the truth:
I would absolutely say that the Russian Federation is a fascist state, yeah, wouldn't you agree?