You don't need to go shouting it, but if someone starts talking politics at you, fucking own it. Some coworker is like "trump sucks", say "yeah I know, I'm a communist". Your grandpa says "trump rules", say "no he sucks ass, I'm a communist". You're on a date and they ask who you're voting for? Say "I'm a communist". Cashier asks would you like change? "Yes, I am a communist".

Be open about your politics and lay claim to the title. Be a communist.

        • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          That's a common misconception, actually! Two things: First, socialist states like the USSR and China get a lot of accusations of causing famine. And it's true that they both had major famines in their early years. What's important, though, is that famines were normal in those areas before the revolution. After the revolution, they had one major famine and then completely solved food insecurity issues. Today, China has some of the best food security in the world. Second, capitalism causes plenty of famines of its own. The Irish Potato famine happened because the British government exported food from Ireland to sell for a profit during a crop shortage. Today, enough food is produced to feed everyone in the world, but it's not profitable to give it to poor starving people.

            • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
              ·
              4 years ago

              Good point about the two famines in the USSR. That was my mistake. The second famine, which was in Ukraine, is a really complex topic. What's clear about is that the Soviet efforts to mitigate the famine underestimated the scale of the situation, which was exacerbated by wealthy peasants destroying crops in protest to wealth redistribution efforts. Either way, the same fact applies: the USSR lasted for another 60 years without any food issues at all.

              Good question about the economy. What we should remember about the economy is that it follows the rules we set for it. You're right that under a capitalist economy, things wouldn't function if we prioritized feeding the needy over generating profit. Your point is actually one of the strongest condemnations of capitalism I can think of.

              As far as the pilgrims go, I would need time to look over that paper and get back to you. I don't want to rush to answer something I'm not familiar with. What I can confidently say is that we are in a fundamentally different position today than the early settler pilgrims were four hundred years ago. We have the technology and organizational capacity to do they things they never could have dreamed of.

                • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  Well it's a two step process, right? I did the first step: capitalism bad. Next step is communism good. I'd point again to China's food security.

                    • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
                      1·
                      4 years ago

                      They are! In the US, for example, COVID has pushed food insecurity from around 11% to around 30%. In China, on the other hand, food insecurity is about 8%. 20 years ago, it was 17%, so China is making significant progress while the US worsens.

                      And on the topic of the very poor in China, that number is in constant decline as well. In the late 70's China's poverty numbers were above 95%. Today they are less than 5%. Half of the reduction happened since 2000. China is by far the global leader in poverty reduction and is on track to completely eliminate poverty within the decade. Can you see that happening in America?

              • Sampson80 [none/use name]
                ·
                4 years ago

                😬 It's not particularly cool to blame the peasants for their own starvation. Some kulaks butchered heads of their cattle so they could at least get some benefit from them, but the effect on the extent of the famine was negligible. It's a very convenient scapegoat for a communist government, blaming "wealthy peasants" behaving selfishly and wastefully, but that itself should be a cause for scepticism.

                • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  Oh, I'm definitely not blaming the majority of the peasants! And I'm not absolving the Soviet government of blame. There was real mishandling of the famine. What I'm saying is that wealthy peasants had turned themselves into a landlord class and intentionally exacerbated the famine via destruction of cattle and crops well beyond normal numbers because their class position was threatened by the Soviet government. The majority of peasants, who were poor, suffered due to this. Like any famine, there is a confluence of factors.

                  1. Environmental conditions

                  2. Insufficient government response

                  3. Landlord sabotage of food stores

                  • ComradeBongwater [he/him]
                    ·
                    4 years ago

                    Drop the word "peasants". It's unnecessary and detracts from your argument in practice.

                    Very few actually know about the exact socioeconomic conditions of the Ukraine at the time beyond as a meme, and if they do, they're either one of us or an experienced propagandist whom engaging would be a waste of time.

                    I'd suggest using the phrasing "the wealthy destroyed their own crops to prevent the populace at large from benefiting from the wealth others labored to bring them." and "they preferred their own countrymen starve to not having social and economic power over them."

                    Mentioning mismanagement in handling the fallout is a good idea. Criticize something (mildly) first if you want someone to open their mind to the positives of that thing.

                    Also, it wouldn't hurt to split "environmental factors" by enumerating the tangible causes. I always try to mention disease and drought separately.

        • guppyman [any]
          ·
          4 years ago

          'You probably will not be surprised to hear that the colonists starved. Men were unwilling to work to feed someone else’s children. Women were unwilling to cook for other women’s husbands. Fields lay largely untilled and unplanted.'

          Starving yourself and your family to own... yourself and your family.