Our current socioeconomic system is basically built on many intersecting hierarchies of coercion, oppression and control - i.e. some measure of power you can use to make someone do something they otherwise wouldn’t want to do. A few examples of those hierarchies include patriarchy, religious authorities, the state, and capitalism.
All of those hierarchies must be abolished. If any of them remain in place, then you will end up with exploiters and the exploited. Eventually, this will stratify over time, as we’ve seen through history a number of times - the rich get richer, accumulate wealth and power until it becomes unbearable, then the current ruling class are overthrown and replaced by a new ruling class.
We need to NOT create a new ruling class. We need to abolish the ruling class and NOT EVER REPLACE THEM.
That’s the mistake made by communism in the USSR - replacing the existing ruling elite with another ruling elite. No matter how cool and revolutionary the leaders of the revolution are, as soon as they have power, they WILL be corrupted by it.
So the solution to our shared problem is anarchism. We need to abolish all forms of coercive control, oppression, hierarchies, ensure that no one has power over anyone else. We need to learn to co-operate, work together, instead of competing and fighting.
Humans are the most co-operative animals in the world. We don’t act like it, because the powers that be discourage us from co-operating. Because if we co-operated, we’d immediately realize the problems we have are coming from above.
Genuine question, what happens in an anarchist utopia when your neighbors decide that they like your land? If you fight back en masse, doesn’t that involve creating a military with a hierarchy that’s ripe for seizing power? How can you maintain the social organization for building fighter jets or aircraft carriers or spycraft without those being taken over and used against the people? If you just don’t, what happens when your neighbors are a global superpower that has all that?
It seems even more impractical and idealistic than Communism, which at least has an answer to that.
Plenty of people here have talked about potential success or failure, and the economic side, but here’s my take. Despite Marx equating religion to an opiate, and especially despite the “no religion” stance of the USSR, Christianity (probably the other Abrahamic religions as well and maybe Hinduism and its offshoots, I’m not exactly sure please correct me if I’m wrong) should be massively in favor of communism over capitalism. In Christianity, we are called to be stewards of creation for God, we run it and manage it but it’s not ours. This doesn’t work with capitalism, which is focused on the concept of ownership. That’s not to mention the equality side of things, which is very much a Christian concept.
I’ve brought this up with some of my Christian friends, and it’s unfortunately not a popular idea. Probably because of lingering cold war attitudes of “communism is atheist”.
Also to be clear: yes I’m Christian, no I’m not pro theocracy, yes this is based on my knowledge of the Bible and on communist philosophy.
Jesus Christ was a socialist. It’s literally his ideology if you just read the words he says.
He never advocated for such systems. In fact, He was for people doing the hard work, not receiving handouts.
So why did he throw the money changers out of the temple then?
Why is it harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to pass through the wye of a needle?
And why do you think communism means no work and only handouts?
The money changing was Babylonian money magick, of which was the reason they were thrown out.
For a rich man to enter heaven, he needed to give up all material things, and instead, focus on building spiritual wealth. This was what the verse in reference meant.
As for communism meaning no work and only handouts, why do you think people are being oppressed? They allowed communism to fit in, and the whole point was to accept handouts for those who didn’t work.
the money changing was Babylonian money magick, of which was the reason they were thrown out
A. Where did you hear that it was Babylonian money? Babylon had fallen ~500 years earlier, so I doubt there’d be any of their money left in use. B. Jesus talks about the temple become “a den of robbers”. That doesn’t sound like the only issue was the choice of currency
the whole point was to accept handouts for those who didn’t work
Ignoring for now the fact that that’s far from the point, what’s so bad about “handouts”? Sure, if you refuse to work you shouldn’t expect to be given a mansion or something, but that’s not what anyone is seriously saying. The “handouts” that leftists talk about is stuff like food and basic housing. The idea is that your right to live is based on your value as a person, not your productivity as a worker.
While Babylon fell in 539, the traditions were still kept by the Medo-Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Roman Catholic Church. Babylon is still alive and well, just not the city anymore. The comment on the “den of robbers” has to do with money changing (the Babylonian money magick) being the robbing.
As for your comment on the handouts thing, I’d recommend reading Laws of Life: Ditch the System, Design Your Life by Jack Spirko. You’ll realize how wrong that is.
Are you telling me that all or most people who get help from the government are lazy people who don’t want to work? The socialism policies are implemented to maintain people lives and sanity so they can try to improve their situations
Precisely. That was a choice they made, and now they got themselves stuck. Spirko (who I’ve talked about earlier in this thread) is always one to recommend a skill that can be so valuable, you don’t need debt to do it. Trades are a good way to do that, and it’s never too late to learn one, apply it, and do it professionally.
This might fall under Rule 6, but I don’t see any part of that. Regardless, it’s unnecessary, and brings about what communists fought against (for while they claim to be against it, they’re secretly for its existence). Here’s why I opine this way.
Communism was created by the Roman Catholic Church through an old, frail Khazar in Marx, which was, and still is, a means to get people to become Catholic without outright joining Roman Catholicism, Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. The abolition of Christianity and irreligion, as talked about multiple times through different Communist philosophers, was one of the main goals. It’s to bring about ecumenicalism (one-world religion, basically, which is the Babylonian Mystery Religion called Catholicism), which is, in fact, Lucifarianism under the Pope and Jesuit Superior General (the Antichrist and False Prophet respectively).
Forks of it would spawn like fascism, which literally has the term fascia, meaning “a band, bandage, swathe”, and/or fasces, meaning “bundle of rods containing an axe with the blade projecting”. Not to intentionally break rule 6, but these fasci symbols are found all over America, and they were in place since at least 1776, if not earlier. What I’m basically saying here is that Rome invented all these things using people like Marx or whomever supposedly created fascism or socialism, as a means of religious warfare against those (like me) who fight the Roman Catholic Church due to their religious corruption, and political corruption on top of that (which we had from 538-1798, the 1,260 year reign of the Popes of Rome, which you can look up yourself).
Everyone I’ve ever met who lived under it says it’s was fucking awful. Not a single endorsement. That’s significant because even capitalism has boosters. Not communism.
I object to the term “capitalism”. The correct term is “classical liberal” (modern liberals are something else with very little in common). I boost capitalism because it is a result of freedom, and that also informs when I will limit my support for capitalism.
You appear to be using the term “capitalism” in a confusing way. From etymonline:
The meaning “political/economic system which encourages capitalists” is recorded from 1872 and originally was used disparagingly by socialists.
Words can change meaning and all that, but when people complain about capitalism, they don’t mean what you’re talking about. You seem to mean something like “well-regulated free market”, and other people mean “broken, exploitative system that worships greed”
