Former KGB member explains how communists are taking over America

submitted by Vulptex from opindia.com

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[–]weavilsatemyface 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

Look at the leaders of every communist country.

In the 21st century, that would be Cuba and Vietnam, the two most powerful superpowers of all history, right? /s

You're fooling yourself if you think that most of the leaders of communist countries had more money, wealth or power than, say, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, the king of Saudi Arabia King Salman or his heir Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Klaus Schwab, or American oligarch families like the Rockefellers.

Perhaps totalitarian dictators like Stalin or Mao, where it was impossible to separate their personal wealth from the nation, but that's pretty dubious and even then there have been absolute monarchs in history even wealthier.

They're wealthier and more powerful than we could ever dream of.

Your dreams must be very small.

Anti-communists: "Capitalist countries and the richest and most powerful! If you want to get rich, come to a capitalist country. Communist countries fail, their economies are weak, they are poor."

Also anti-communists: "The Democrats want America to be communist so they will be rich and powerful!"

Dude they're already rich and powerful, and they did it through crony capitalism. That is why they oppose efforts to bring in real public oversight over corporations. Remember the bank bailouts in the global financial crisis? Too big to allow them to fail, but not too big to pass laws preventing the banks from getting into financial scams. And the idea that they should be broken up so that they wouldn't be too big to fail had bipartisan opposition.

Nah, both parties like the system just as it is: they make money when big corporations scam the little guy, and when they get so greedy that the system collapses from the weight of all the scams, the government swoops in with public money to bail the corporations out, save the shareholders, and start the process all over again.

Don't listen to the words they say, look at the actions they actually do.

Pelosi has made $70 million dollars since 2009, mostly from insider trading in industries that are affected by her legislation. Are you surprised to learn that she opposes attempts to regulate stock trading by congresspeople? How about Chuck Schumer's daughters and son-in-law benefiting from his obstructing antitrust legislation?

Repeat after me: Not everything bad is communism.

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

The most powerful communist country right now is China. Where the people are super poor and the members of the communist party hoard all the wealth.

The "purest" communist country is obviously North Korea, where Kim Jong Un is fat and worshiped as a god while everyone else is resorting to cannibalism because the state takes all their food for the leaders of the communist party. And if they're caught eating their own produce they get tortured. Sure Kim Jong Un lives in a hermit kingdom, but he basically has infinite wealth and power inside of it, because he owns and controls everything.

Imagine if the North Korea situation happened in America. Those who got to be the leaders would attain a kind of wealth and power far above what anyone could ever dream of. Instead of a bunch of allied corporations, they merge into one all-powerful state. If you think monopolies are bad now, you aint seen nothin' yet. They would have complete control and 100% monopoly, with zero accountability. Crony capitalism is just one step closer.

[–]weavilsatemyface 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

The most powerful communist country right now is China.

China calls themselves "communist" but they don't act communist. They are an authoritarian mixed economy. They have the fourth biggest stock market in the world for fucks sake, that is the essence of capitalism in action.

the people are super poor and the members of the communist party hoard all the wealth.

Dude, economic inequality is much worse in the USA than in China.

The Gini Coefficient of the USA is about 41, compared to about 38 in China (and Russia, for what its worth). Higher is more unequal. A Gini Coefficient of 0 would mean total equality, where everyone has exactly the same wealth; a Gini Coefficient of 100 is perfect inequality, where one person owns everything and everyone else has nothing.

Overall, the USA is richer than China, but most of that wealth is horded by the elites. The wealthiest 10% people in the USA control about 70% of the country's wealth, compared to about 65% for the top 10% in China. The poorest 50% of the USA control about 2% of the nation's wealth, compared to about 7% for China. Neither country is exactly egalitarian, but of the two, it is clearly the US that is less equitable and where the wealthy horde more of the nation's wealth.

If you want to get filthy rich, there is no substitute for being part of the ruling elite of a crony capitalist country.

(Note: these figures may change. China is getting wealthier, while the US is digging itself into more and more debt. Aside from war, movies, sexual perversions and pandemics, Americans hardly make anything any more. As America gets poorer, I expect the wealthy elites will continue to drain the life out of the middle class and working class, leading to even more inequality.)

The "purest" communist country is obviously North Korea

"Obviously" to those who know nothing about either North Korea or communism. This is yet another example of the American mental disease that labels everything and anything bad as "communism".

NK follows their own political philosophy of Juche sasang, which is some weird-arse mutant combination of religion, monarchism and nationalism. It has some roots in Marxism, but by 1970 it deviated from any form of socialism that Marx or Lenin would recognise. And it absolutely is not communism. If you were to ask North Koreans, they would possibly say their country is a socialist nation working towards communism, but then most Americans think they live in a democracy too, we shouldn't care too much about what the ignorant and brain-washed say about their nation's ruling ideology.

If you squint, you might say that North Korea follows a kind of semi-socialist ideology, but even Blind Freddy can see it's not communism, and the national/religious/monarchist elements of Juche outweigh the socialist ones.

Kim Jong Un is fat ... while everyone else is resorting to cannibalism

Compared to the average Walmartian, Kim Jong Un is practically anorexic.

As for the cannibalism thing, that just silly. Even at the height of the North Korean famine in the 1990s there were only isolated cases of cannibalism.

Kim Jong Un lives in a hermit kingdom, but he basically has infinite wealth and power inside of it, because he owns and controls everything.

North Korea is not a cartoon, and Fat Boy Kim is only one man, he has to sleep some time, he could not hold power without many loyal and powerful people around him. Others include his sister Kim Yo-jong , the Premier (Kim Tok-hun), and the Chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly (Ryong-hae-song). If they did not get a share of the power and wealth, Fat Boy Kim would have had "an accident" a long time ago.

Imagine if the North Korea situation happened in America.

You don't have to imagine it. North Korea has about 200,000 prisoners working in virtual slavery in prison camps. The USA has about half its 2+ million prisoners working in virtual slavery in prisons.

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

"Real communism" is practically impossible. People are naturally greedy and only look out for themselves. Yet communism puts complete faith in humanity. Obviously this falls apart real quick, so the only way to slavage some kind of socialist system is for the government to say, "If you don't want to disappear, work and live where we tell you, believe what we tell you, and do exactly as we tell you". Then the leaders can do whatever they want. Income inequality hits record lows, because everyone has the same ration: dirt poor. Not counting the leaders of course. Even if you could somehow get it to work, it's still a Big Brother NWO police state where everyone has to be the same and act like cogs and gears and machines responding to the commands of society and the state.

And while the USA does wrongfully use inmates for slave labor, that's heaven compared to how people are treated in North Korea. Yes, even the regular people, let alone those who are in concentration camps.

[–]weavilsatemyface 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

"Real communism" is practically impossible.

Real communism works fine in small groups. For most of the existence of humanity, before we settled down into large agricultural settlements and allowed brutal men with sharp swords to declare themselves king, we lived in small nomadic bands, or small tribes and villages, and the basic economic foundations are communist. Human nature is communist, and not everyone is greedy. In small societies, the greedy get shunned and punished if they take too much.

But we don't live in small tribes any more. We live in unnaturally vast nation states with social hierarchies of wealth that simply can not exist in a simpler life.

Whether communism can scale up to the size of large nation is a hard question to answer, especially since every single so-called communist country started in violent revolution and civil war and was surrounded by powerful enemies trying, and succeeding, to undermine it at every step.

Nevertheless, we know from the early 20th century that communist style participatory democracy without political parties or totalitarianism is definitely possible and was successful:

But being attacked and undermined by both the capitalists on the one hand, and the Bolshevists on the other, they eventually failed.

The powerful never give up their power without a fight, and then never stop trying to regain that power. Capitalism was never going to exist peacefully with communism even if the commies had been angels (and they weren't, they were hairless apes like the rest of us, with the same flaws). Whether it is direct hot war or indirect undermining, every so-called communist country has had to spend vast amounts of time, energy, money and lives just trying to defend itself from capitalists. Look at Cuba, where the US is still fighting an economic war against the country, harming them out of pure spite. "How dare you make a communist country sort of work instead of failing immediately?"

that's heaven compared to how people are treated in North Korea

Oh, you've been to both North Korea and an American prison and can compare the two from first-hand experience, can you?

[–]Vulptex[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

I wouldn't exactly call the natural economy communist. Communism is an organized form of government and forcibly makes everyone "equal". The natural economy is probably closer to a free trading market, perhaps without land ownership. At that small of a scale people are more likely to share willingly, because they can all see how it benefits them, but that's far from being the same thing as redistribution. People will work and hunt because they can see a direct benefit, whereas in communist societies you earn the same rations whether you work hard or are lazy. Even this can only work at a very small scale.

[–]weavilsatemyface 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Communism is an organized form of government

Communism is the complete opposite of organised government.

Communism is "a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs." (Oxford Dictionary.) There is no need for organised government in communism, let alone a coercive one. This is why there is such a close relationship between European anarchism and communism: so called "anarcho-communism".

The whole point of communism is that it is a community system, like in communes, just as you describe here:

a free trading market, perhaps without land ownership. ... people are more likely to share willingly, because they can all see how it benefits them ... People will work and hunt because they can see a direct benefit

Exactly. What you describe is the Utopian vision of a communist society, and we know that it works well in small groups. But it really isn't clear that it scales up to eight billion hairless apes, or even a few million in a single city, let alone large nations.

But even if it did scale, we still have the problem of how we're supposed to get there starting from the deeply unequal capitalist society we live in, where there is a parasitical elite class who owns the means of production, and has the money and power to protect their position at the top of the pyramid. Power never steps down without a fight.

Marx's solution to that was a transition period of socialism, where a strong government would defeat the capitalists and their hangers-on, institute government ownership of the means of production, and then, in the fullness of time, wither away leaving a pure communist utopia.

I think Marx was sharp as a knife at recognising the problems and flaws of 19th century capitalist society, but pretty naive about human nature. Marxists, in my opinion, are every bit as woolly-brained and unrealistic as American libertarians.

Short of a time machine to go back to before the invention of agriculture, it is hard to see how to reach that supposed Utopian communist state from the world we live it today. Marx thought it would be the workers of Germany and England that would start the revolution. But the capitalist class didn't just stand back and do nothing: by using a combination of carrot (pensions, more liberal and progressive laws, allowing unions to negotiate better pay and conditions, etc) and stick (crushing radical revolutionaries, by force if necessary) plus propaganda, they managed to avoid socialist revolutions in the west. Completely against Marx's theories, the only successful socialist revolutions have been in agrarian societies like Russia, China, Vietnam and Cuba.

And so today most people in the industrialised west live in some sort of welfare state, a mixed socialist/capitalist economy with safety nets, giving us the best of both systems. That allows the elites to keep their ill-gotten privileges, while still removing the need for radical revolution. This is why most "radical leftists" today are only looking to reform the system, not to revolutionise it.

[–]Jesus 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Commun(ism) is an incorporation, from its inception to its practice.

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Yes, I'm aware of the anarcho-communist theories. However, just as you described, it's simply unworkable in our world. It would require that most people have an inherently good nature, which even though we try to act like we do, we don't.

And I also think it's still an authoritarian regime even without a state. It would essentially be mob rule, absolute tyranny of the majority. And that kind of system would immediately become a state anyway.

Beyond that it's almost pointless trying to debate economic systems at the anarchist level, because there's no one to control it. We all think it would "naturally" become this or that, but in reality people would organize a number of different systems. And that's fine. This is why I and a lot of people changed the political compass to a triangle.

[–]weavilsatemyface 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

it's almost pointless trying to debate economic systems at the anarchist level, because there's no one to control it.

Economics occurs whenever you have people performing trade. You don't need somebody to control it. You don't even need money -- barter economies exist.

Economics is an emergent phenomenon. You might have heard of John Adam's "Invisible Hand"?

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

And there will not be one centralized system. Complete free trade is ancap. Communism requires a central authority to own the means of production and control how the economy works. Even if you have a body of "the people", that's just a direct democracy masquerading as anarchist. Complete free market doesn't mean people won't live communal lifestyles because they are free to do so, but that nation can't quite be defined as communist.

[–]weavilsatemyface 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

This is why I and a lot of people changed the political compass to a triangle.

Oh, how does that work?

[–]Vulptex[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It's more about overall philosophy. Do you value order, equality, or liberty?