This image is silly though because you could just replace the text with "the sky is blue" or any other fact to make the opposite point. Like if you're going to make a political cartoon the cartoon itself needs to be making some point. Don't be like that seppo loon that just writes labels on everything.
Something like this is much funnier as the image and text play together.
ShowFunny enough, in the essay Adam Smith's Socialism, the author analyzes what Smith's prediction of Socialism would look like had he been a Socialist, with his own analysis of Capitalism. Kind of a "what if?" Scenario.
Nice, I'm gonna read that soon. I do know that Adam Smith explicitly agreed with the labor theory of value, which all the capitalist economics schools reject despite venerating him.
It's a fun article! Said writer also has cool articles like analyzing Quantum Mechanics alongside Dialectical Materialism, and their articles were very helpful in my coming to understand Socialism in general. Probably going to revisit their article on Fiat currency now that I am working my way through Capital over on Hexbear.
This. Also, whatever is going on in China and Russia is NOT "communism." Those are oligarchies, where a small number of billionaires use the news media to keep the lower and middle classes fighting with each other, while the rich keep running off with all the f*cking money.
Half right, the Russian Federation abandoned Socialism with the dissolution of the USSR. The PRC hasn't achieved Communism yet, but have a Socialist Market Economy and are run along Marxist-Leninist analysis. It isn't correct to call the PRC an "oligarchy" either, China Has Billionaires but they are subservient to the CPC, which has over 96 million people and functions in a "top down, from the bottom up" fashion. Those at the top of the CPC, in the NPC, are largely educated non-bourgeoisie.
Socialism works
Examples from this post by /u/bayarea415, Stephen Gowans - Do publicly owned, planned economies work, Ian Goodrum - Socialism vs Capitalism and quality of life, and yogthos's USSR acheivements post about the USSR specifically:
- USSR had a more nutritious diet than the US, according to the CIA. Calories consumed surpassed the US. source. Ended famines.
- Productive forces were not organized for capital gain and private enrichment; public ownership of the means of production supplanted private ownership. It was illegal to hire others and accumulate personal wealth from their labor.
- Had the 2nd fastest growing economy of the 20th century after Japan. The USSR started out at the same level of economic development and population as Brazil in 1920, which makes comparisons to the US, an already industrialized country by the 1920s, even more spectacular.
- Free Universal Health care, and most doctors per capita in the world. 42 doctors per 10k population, vs 24 in Denmark and Sweden, 19 in US.
- Had near zero unemployment, continuous economic growth for 70 straight years. The "continuous" part should make sense – the USSR was a planned, non-market economy, so market crashes á la capitalism were pretty much impossible.
- USSR moved from 58.5-hour workweeks to 41.6 hour workweeks (-0.36 h/yr) between 1913 and 1960
- USSR averaged 22 days of paid leave in 1986 while USA averaged 7.6 in 1996., 2
- In 1987, people in the USSR could retire with pension at 55 (female) and 60 (male) while receiving 50% of their wages at a at minimum. Meanwhile, in USA the average retirement age was 62-67.
- All education, including university level, free. 2
- 99% literacy.
- Saved the world from Fascism, Taking on the majority of Nazi divisions, and killing 90% of Nazi soldiers. Bore the enormous cost of blood and pain in WW2 (25M dead), with the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare.. An estimated 70% of Soviet housing was destroyed by Nazi invasion. Nazis were in retreat after the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, a full 2 years before the US landed troops in normandy.
- Doubled life expectancy. Eliminated poverty.
- Combatted sex inequality. Equal wages for men and women mandated by law, but sex inequality, although not as pronounced as under capitalism, was perpetuated in social roles. Very important lesson to learn.
- Combatted Racial inequality.
- Feudalism to space travel in 40 years. First satellite, rocket, space walk, woman, man, animal, space station, moon and mars probes.
- Soviet power production per capita in 1990 was more than the EU, Great Britain, or China's in 2014.
- Housing was socialized by localized community organizations, and there was virtually no homelessness. Houses were often shared by two families throughout the 20s and 30s – so unlike capitalism, there were no empty houses, but the houses were very full. In the 40s there was the war, and in the 50s there were a number of orphans from the war. The mass housing projects began in the 60s, they were completed in the 70s, and by the 70s, there were homeless people, but they often had genuine issues with mental health.
- 66% of Russians polled in 2015 want the USSR back. The story is the same for all the former eastern-bloc countries: 72% of Hungarians say their country is worse off now than under communism, 57% of East Germans, 63% of Romanians, 77% of Czechs, 81% of Serbs (for Yugoslavia), 70% of Ukrainians, 60% of Bulgarians.
When it is claimed that a system works, we should ask, who it works for. Capitalism benefits a tiny number of rapacious capitalists, to the detriment of the rest of us, while Socialism works for the masses.
Now let's take a look at what happens after the USSR collapsed, and what came with capitalist privatization:
- Life expectancy decreases by 10 years. 2. 7.7 million excess deaths in the first year. 2
- 40% of population drops into poverty.
- GDP instantly halves.
- One in ten children now live on the streets. Infant mortality increases. Was 29.3 in 2003 which is around (current) Syria and Micronesia, 7.9 in 2013. Infant mortality in USSR was 1.92, literally the lowest in the world.
- 1996 election rigged by the US, Yeltsin sends in tanks to disperse the supreme soviet.
For an overview of the soviet experiment, watch this brilliant talk by Micheal Parenti, or read his article, Left anticommunism, the unkindest cut.
Also read this great article by Stephen Gowans, Do publicly owned, planned economies work?. Audio on youtube
Couldn't believe that 77% percent of Czechs said that they are worse off now. And in the source you provide there's only that 23% think it's better now. I really don't know what to say to everyone praising the USSR after hearing stories from my whole family about how so grateful they are that it's over.
Am Czech, the average person is genuinely better off today (at least materially) than during communism. You would need to wait years to get a telephone, car, or TV
Some ideas from communism have been copied into capitalism to make it seem less cruel.
Don't project your inability to reason onto other people it's rude