freagle

In fact, it generally wasn’t even a category. It was just a behavior

You might want to back down off that position. Just take a look at jim crow laws

You’re arguing in bad faith.

This is inaccurate. Let’s break it down.

Generally speaking, communism usually starts off great for the majority of people

Generally speaking, the movement for communism reaches revolutionary potential during the absolute worst times for the majority of people. The movement for communism, helmed by a communist party, pushes to organize the masses during times of deep desperation and then applies revolution to the entire society, starting with the government and the military. During this time, the society is the most authoritarian it can ever be as the revolutionaries and the existing government, as well as other groups, all attempt to establish control over the society by imposing their authority.

If the communists succeed, it gets better from there, not worse. You can see this in literally every single communist project in modern history.

Brings people out of poverty and whatnot. Very, very bad for the rich and upper middle classes but overall the public benefits.

This is pretty handwavy of the massive amount of effort and complexity required to solve mass poverty. In the USSR and China, both countries had centuries of cyclic famines that caused the masses to suffer and die off while the rich hoarded everything they needed to survive and maintain their power. It takes years of huge effort to modernize an entire country’s agricultural sector to end the cycle of famines, and modernizing agriculture means modernizing a lot of other things - chemical production for fertilizer, machine factories, internal combustion engines, steel foundries, etc. It’s a gargantuan effort.

The sense in which it’s very very bad for the rich is the sense that the royal family doesn’t get to keep their palace and their jewels, the aristocracy don’t get to keep charging rent to indentured servants and peasants on the farm land they own (usually the majority of farmland in the country), etc. It’s “bad” in the sense that they no longer have the ability to be billionaires and luxuries stop getting produced. They lose the caviar and the jewelry and the palaces but they get the same benefits as everyone else - an end to the famine cycle, an end to homelessness, major improvements to the medical system, the sanitation systems, etc.

Then authoritarianism kicks in and everything goes to shit really fast

So we’ve established why the authoritarianism is worst at the beginning of the revolutionary moment. So let’s talk about the history that supports your position.

In the USSR, the revolution of 1917 was quickly followed by an invasion of Russia by Western Europe and the US in 1918. War always results in authoritarian social controls. By 1925, Hitler had published Mein Kampf which clearly stated that this intention was invade Russia, destroy the USSR, and enslave the population. During this time, the USSR was busy trying to stop the endless cycle of famines and it was experiencing internal resistance from the petit bourgeois farm owners. Authoritarian social control was applied both to force the change in the agriculture sector to finally be able to feed everyone, but also in ensuring society against those that agreed with the West and particular were willing to collaborate with the Third Reich.

By the time the Nazis invaded, Stalin had spent years using authoritarianism to force the country to prepare for war when many people didn’t believe there would be a war and even among those that did didn’t believe the doomsday scenarios that Stalin was driven by. Again, authoritarianism applied, this time in the industrial sectors to drive the preparations for war and in the political sector to ensure the war preparations would continue.

We know that these were limited applications of authority, no matter how egregious, because the masses of the population were in love with Stalin. He was from an ethnic minority, he had zero personal wealth, he was committed entirely to the masses and was willing to use authority on their behalf, and then after the USSR not only survived the onslaught but marched all the way through Berlin and liberated the concentration camps, the masses support for Stalin was incredible.

So, despite the initial revolutionary period being the most authoritarian, it is also true that the authoritarianism that followed after the initial revolution was very acute and dramatic. Things DID go to shit, but not because of authoritarianism. The famines were solved until the Nazis invaded. The invasion sent everything to shit. Millions died, famines returned, etc.

But AFTER Stalin came Kruschev. And Kruschev and every subsequent leader actually went for LESS overt authoritarianism. They all engaged in a process of liberalization of the economy, allowing more private wealth accumulation. In the early years after the war, this was actually accompanied by an incredible increase in living standards based on the industrial strength develop before and during the war, and based on the fact that they were no longer facing imminent invasion. The USSR was second only to the United States in food availability and nutrition. They were the 2nd best fed country in the world according to the CIA.

It was the last few decades of the USSR where things really went to shit. The country was deep in its liberalization movement, with private wealth accumulating and inequality getting horrible. There were two prominent periods of scarcity (like bread lines) in the USSR - the first was caused by WW2, the second was in the 80s caused by the wealth inequality caused by liberalization. There were two prominent periods of mass deaths in the USSR - the first was caused by WW2, the second was in the 7 years following the dissolution of the USSR when liberalization shock therapy caused mass deaths due to lack of medicine, food, and hope.

China follows similar patterns. The initial revolution is deeply authoritarian. Then it lightens up. But the US is launching wars in Korea, Vietnam, etc and they are threatening to invade and even to nuke China. The authoritarianism becomes more acute, but less universal. Unlike the USSR, China has managed to continue to build up the autonomy and wealth of the masses over its 75 years. The USSR was already gone by year 75.

People very quickly lose equality and equal treatment as a result.

As you can deduce from the above, the problem is the opposite, in fact. Things go to shit because of the elevation of private wealth accumulation (unequal treatment is the cause not the effect).

Corruption is the biggest, inevitable problem […] Since that’s incredibly difficult under communism, you end up with lots of quid pro quo. Underground, black markets

You say this, but the US has been running covert drug operations for decades, literally creating entire cartels and running drugs globally for black market profits. Organized crime has always been a huge part of the US history, including its mythos. And we’re literally looking at that exact thing happening with Donald Trump and realizing it’s been this way for decades involving weapons manufacturing, human trafficking, feeder schools, the movie industry, etc. You’re pointing at a universal problem of power and saying somehow its special under communism, but Epstein, Trump, Enron, Bear Stearns, LIBOR, the Sacklers, and so many others happened under capitalism.

Basically, it never works out.

It’s been tried 6 times (USSR, China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, DPRK). One has failed.

The end result is authoritarianism and deep corruption every time.

Just look at the authoritarianism and corruption in the USA, UK. Most countries in the world are capitalist, and most are corrupt as shit and most are beating pro-Palestine protestors or imprisoning political dissidents.

Except with communism, the pressures of the system force these sorts of problems to arise much faster.

The US was literally founded on indigenous genocide and mass slavery? It was so fast, it literally took zero time.

The peaceful solution is the decline of the West. Politics is rational. The CPC has no need to invade provided that foreign militaries do not build up threats on the province. As the West declines, trade with them becomes less attractive to Taiwan and trade with the mainland becomes more attractive. As the mainland develops, Taiwan will have the same calculus to do as Europe is doing now - align with the US or align with China.

It’s really just a matter of time before Taiwan fully embraces 1 country 2 systems. Materially, the only component they don’t currently embrace is the national defense component. They don’t purport to be a country independent of China, and the legal reality is that they are literally part of China. So they essentially are 1 country 2 systems with th exception of national defense being provided for by the US instead the CPC.

Peaceful reunification will happen when the US withdraws. Violence will happen if the US escalates. That’s the entirety of the spread of possibilities. The choice of peace lies entirely in the hands of the US.

Now you’re getting it. Security guarantees from the US are NOT relevant. They are rhetorical cover for military build up inline with the US policy of encirclement. Absent from all of these discussions is that the US has military forces stationed 4 miles of the mainland because Taiwan is not one island it’s a province comprising an island chain. The CPC’s consistent policy is peaceful reunification via waiting except in the case where a foreign military uses the province to threaten the mainland.

Please don’t confuse actual technological progress with markets. These two things have always been separate. The intellectual property market is a huge problem for innovation, and it exists because the market system is inherently a resource control system, and resource control systems that are driven by market dynamics are huge problems for innovation.

Modern infrastructure is not built by markets. University materials research is not driven by markets.

Exciting modernization in entertainment and sports

Whut?

Law makers take bribes as low as $20k

Jitsi