Communism, the classless, fully collectivized system of production and distribution, has not existed yet. It is a post-socialist mode of production. Socialism is a mode of production where public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and is the transition between capitalism and communism. Socialist countries exist that are run by communist parties, and some of these states do have billionaires as they have not fully collectivized production and distribution.
I think you’re misunderstanding the transition between capitalism and communism. Where did you get your understanding of what socialism and communism look like from?
If the transition was ever going to be complete it would have been by now. Billionaires in “communist” countries are a hypocritical joke. Certain countries just lead the people on, promising communism “soon,” while have no intention of giving up power.
The transition between capitalism and communism is already ongoing. It isn’t marked by target dates or hard numbers, but instead is a gradual transformation that happens constantly. China has already made the qualitative leap to socialism.
There isn’t a set one that’s the point, you have to work through and synthesise the contradictions not only nationally but globally this is an entirely new path being blazed currently expecting exact dates so you can dismiss the whole project is infantile behaviour.
No? What makes you think that China, for example, would need to collectivize all of the small and medium firms right this instant, before those even socialize? Being integrated with the global economy has brought tremendous growth and technology transfer that has helped with massive projects to uplift the working classes. Systems cannot remain static, as they develop they change. As production and development continues, these sovialize, become more interconnected and centralized. The path between capitalism and communism is lengthy.
Again, where did you get your understanding from? It looks like there’s some serious misconceptions going on.
There are no missing gaps. I got it from years of talking to you guys and reading your links—then disagreeing. Billionaires equal capitalism and capitalism and those who support any form of it are the problem.
Billionaires do not equal capitalism, though. The nature of a system is what is rising in it, not what is dying away. It’s through these logical leaps that you have to resort to in order to justify your own lack of support for a system where public ownership is the principal aspect, where as production socializes and centralizes it is folded into the public sector, and where the working classes maintain dominance over the state.
How do you get rid of private property? Is all private property the same? Is it all superfluous, or does it present a tradeoff? Since no system is static, what a system is working towards, its trajectory, is critical.
You can insist that there are no gaps, but from what I can tell there are plenty. You place your hatred for billionaires over your desire for a better world for the working classes. You take socialist countries as enemies for not placing retribution over material reality.
Billionaires are bourgeoisie. The existence of the bourgeoisie does not mean a system is capitalist alone, what’s important is what is the principal aspect of the economy. You’re relying on the “one-drop” rule, which would imply that the existence of a public post office in the US means that the US is fully communist. That’s obviously ridiculous, private ownership is the principal aspect of the Statesian economy, but this is the limit of the “one-drop” rule.
Capitalism is a mode of production, not a class. I am not defending the permanent existence of the bourgeoisie, but instead defending a system where the bourgeoisie is waning and socialized production is rising. I am defending the transitional status as valid and moving, not a static, unmoving snapshot.
I never excused billionaires, I only defended socialism. Please, explain how your vehemont opposition to any movement that does not immediately result in communism makes you a “real socialist.” How do you think communism is to come into existence, if not through socialism?
I have no unity with people who oppose the Dictatorship of the Proletariate, and do not consider them part of the left. They are at best, misguided folks with their hearts in the right place, but far more often they are knowing Imperialist tools trying to suppress class consciousness.
Karl and Vlad aren’t exactly known for their concern for the environment or animal welfare beyond recognizing that things like soil fatigue and over-farming would eventually render it unfit for production to feed the humans. Anthropomorphic pragmatism at the expense of the ecosystem is a hard pass for me.
You’re telling me environmental sciences weren’t super advanced in the 1800s and 1910s I’m shocked. You people are so unserious. Socialism/Communism is the best shot we have at tackling these issues by removing the profit drive that necessitates exploitation at the very core of the current system. But sure let’s throw it all away because you don’t actually understand anything beyond vibes and idealist nonsense.
What’a shocking isn’t that they weren’t environmentally conscious in their time, it’s shocking that a hundred plus years on and their cultists will disregard environmental science to support statecraft over climate. You tanked are out here defending Team China billionaires vs Team America billionaires, but neither of your systems can produce one that earned their billions without exploiting the planet. The both of you greenwash your rape with climate pledges and carbon free goals but at the end of the day it’s because both states know if the states rape the planet hard enough they can’t exist. I’m serious as fuck, you can’t justify the existence of commie billionaires when confronted with their profiteering at the expense of the planet any better than a western capitalist so you disregard the argument. Your systems both value humans over the rest of the lives we share this rock with.
“What’s shocking isn’t that they weren’t environmentally conscious in their time, it’s shocking that a hundred plus years on and their cultists will disregard environmental science to support statecraft over climate.”
Cultists. Right. Because analyzing material conditions is cult behavior but trusting market signals that literally price extinction as an externality is rational. Marx and Engels wrote about the metabolic rift between society and nature in the 1860s. That is foundational ecological critique. You dismiss a century of development in socialist environmental theory because it does not match your moral aesthetic. China’s ecological civilization framework is not statecraft over climate. It is state capacity applied to climate. Binding targets in the 14th Five-Year Plan. Provincial cadre evaluations tied to environmental metrics. The world’s largest carbon market covering power generation. That is not disregard. That is planning.
“You tankies are out here defending Team China billionaires vs Team America billionaires, but neither of your systems can produce one that earned their billions without exploiting the planet.”
Tankie is a thought-terminating slur. It replaces analysis with a label. Drop it. And commie billionaire is a contradiction in terms that you wield to avoid engaging with actually existing socialism. China’s billionaires operate within a system where the state controls land, finance, energy, and strategic industry. They are tolerated, regulated, and increasingly compressed under common prosperity. The number of billionaires in China has been shrinking. Platform economy crackdowns. Anti-monopoly fines. Wealth redistribution mechanisms. This is not capitalism with red flags. This is a transitional mode managing contradictions. Your false equivalence between a socialist state that directs capital and a capitalist state that is directed by it is either ignorance or bad faith.
“The both of you greenwash your rape with climate pledges and carbon free goals but at the end of the day it’s because both states know if the states rape the planet hard enough they can’t exist.”
Greenwash is a material accusation. Show the material. China manufactures over 70 percent of the world’s solar modules. Produces the majority of EVs and batteries. Built the largest electrified rail network on earth. Installed more renewable capacity in 2023 than the US has in its entire history. These are not pledges. These are material actions. Meanwhile the West offshores emissions, counts consumption poorly, and calls it progress. If this is greenwashing then the greenwash is building the actual infrastructure to decarbonize the global economy. Your rhetoric sounds radical but it erases the material difference between a system that plans for ecological transition and one that cannot because profit forbids it.
“I’m serious as fuck, you can’t justify the existence of commie billionaires when confronted with their profiteering at the expense of the planet any better than a western capitalist so you disregard the argument.”
You are serious. And you are wrong. We do not justify billionaires. We analyze them. In China, private wealth is subordinated to social goals through party discipline, state finance, and industrial policy. When a tech billionaire’s company harms workers or the environment, the state intervenes. Fines. Restructuring. Public re-education. That does not happen under capitalism. It cannot. The profit motive is the law. Under socialism, the profit motive is a tool. A managed contradiction. We are reducing the number of billionaires. We are expanding public ownership in strategic sectors. We are directing investment toward green tech. If you want to fight billionaires, fight the system that produces them as a structural necessity. Not the one that is actively dismantling their power.
“Your systems both value humans over the rest of the lives we share this rock with.”
This is idealist nonsense. Valuing human flourishing is not opposed to valuing nature. The rift is created by capitalism, which treats both labor and nature as disposable inputs. Socialism seeks a rational metabolism between society and nature. That means clean air, restored soils, protected biodiversity, and stable climate because human survival depends on it. China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty while expanding forest coverage, controlling desertification, and leading global renewable deployment. That is not human-über-alles. That is recognizing that ecological health and human development are dialectically united. You can posture about deep ecology while the planet burns. We are building the material base to actually save it.
If you want to criticize, criticize from the left. Criticize from materialism. But do not equate a system that plans for ecological survival with one that structurally cannot. One of these systems is building the solar panels, the batteries, the rail, the grid. The other is writing net-zero pledges on paper while approving new oil fields. Pick a side based on what is being built, not on vibes.
China is at the forefront of combatting desertification, proliferation of solar, and electrification. This is made possible by strong central planning in a socialist market economy, and is entirely different from an economy that could transition to clean energy and strong environmental protections but refuses to for profit alone.
The change is not good enough because is it still thinks humans are exceptional. Better argue over which political system is worse for our species while both exploits the planet so we can feel better about who was right when the status quo prevails. Yeah, your change isn’t good enough.
You’ve had a few hundred years and a few attempts but even your allies in the comments can only offer that it’s being pledged and that there’s plans, eventually, maybe, we’re working on it. You can defend Chinese methods against a lot of western criticism, but seriously, the end of factory farming? They’re making no moves to address how they feed their people.
But since you brought them up: hey’re certainly now the cutting edge on renewable energy and smart grid tech. Agriculture emissions are still second place behind fossil fuel emissions, so for what my opinion is worth (not much) they’re following the right course by focusing on that first. But don’t be surprised if the next big innovation in reducing agriculture emissions comes out of an AES country. They’re certainly far more likely to devote massive resources to the problem than anywhere in the West.
aren’t exactly known for their concern for the environment or animal welfare beyond recognizing that things like soil fatigue and over-farming would eventually render it unfit for production to feed the humans.
lol… so in other words you mean recognizing environmental concern. Is this that materialism I keep hearing about?
Yeah. If you’re only concern is “how much can we exploit the environment until it’s unfit for human use”, you’re treating the environment like it’s a material for human consumption.
Elementary school level of understanding tells you that focusing on the benefit of land because it benefits humans is still a good thing. The more we focus on long term environmental goals the more we will tackle all facets of them, the PSL has written about it in modern language, and that’s only one org.
whining about theory gets you nowhere. I promise you you won’t meet leftists who feel good about factory farming.
You can do this kinda stuff on the internet all you’d like and call us cultists for our politics but if you’re going to engage with people like us you’re gonna get real answers based on material conditions (both future and past). Sorry it’s not the argument you want but eradicating capitalism will rapidly increase education and literacy, workplace independence and most importantly eradicate the drive for profit, as others have said, even in ways like profit driven FOOD and WATER consumption leading to over farming and wasting products that go moldy on the shelf because they’re too expensive, and on and on. Hurl insults all you want, you’d fit right in on Reddit
Well, it is impossible to work toward communism while trying to appease imperialists who are constantly attacking you - through propaganda, economic embargoes that starve your country, and actual bombs. Revolutions need to continue to spread internationally, and capitalism needs to be defeated globally…only then will we have communism. Workers of the world will finally lose their chains when this happens.
Exactly this. This idea that any country could just will itself into communism is deeply anti-materialist. If that were possible, it would have been done already. The fact that these vibes-based “socialists” always reject actually existing socialist states makes me suspect that they’re actually just racist.
Communism, the classless, fully collectivized system of production and distribution, has not existed yet. It is a post-socialist mode of production. Socialism is a mode of production where public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and is the transition between capitalism and communism. Socialist countries exist that are run by communist parties, and some of these states do have billionaires as they have not fully collectivized production and distribution.
I think you’re misunderstanding the transition between capitalism and communism. Where did you get your understanding of what socialism and communism look like from?
If the transition was ever going to be complete it would have been by now. Billionaires in “communist” countries are a hypocritical joke. Certain countries just lead the people on, promising communism “soon,” while have no intention of giving up power.
Why do you believe this?
What’s the date for transition?
The transition between capitalism and communism is already ongoing. It isn’t marked by target dates or hard numbers, but instead is a gradual transformation that happens constantly. China has already made the qualitative leap to socialism.
There isn’t a set one that’s the point, you have to work through and synthesise the contradictions not only nationally but globally this is an entirely new path being blazed currently expecting exact dates so you can dismiss the whole project is infantile behaviour.
No? What makes you think that China, for example, would need to collectivize all of the small and medium firms right this instant, before those even socialize? Being integrated with the global economy has brought tremendous growth and technology transfer that has helped with massive projects to uplift the working classes. Systems cannot remain static, as they develop they change. As production and development continues, these sovialize, become more interconnected and centralized. The path between capitalism and communism is lengthy.
Again, where did you get your understanding from? It looks like there’s some serious misconceptions going on.
There are no missing gaps. I got it from years of talking to you guys and reading your links—then disagreeing. Billionaires equal capitalism and capitalism and those who support any form of it are the problem.
Billionaires do not equal capitalism, though. The nature of a system is what is rising in it, not what is dying away. It’s through these logical leaps that you have to resort to in order to justify your own lack of support for a system where public ownership is the principal aspect, where as production socializes and centralizes it is folded into the public sector, and where the working classes maintain dominance over the state.
How do you get rid of private property? Is all private property the same? Is it all superfluous, or does it present a tradeoff? Since no system is static, what a system is working towards, its trajectory, is critical.
You can insist that there are no gaps, but from what I can tell there are plenty. You place your hatred for billionaires over your desire for a better world for the working classes. You take socialist countries as enemies for not placing retribution over material reality.
Agree to disagree. Billionaires are the definition of capitalism. Defending their existence is just SINO
Billionaires are bourgeoisie. The existence of the bourgeoisie does not mean a system is capitalist alone, what’s important is what is the principal aspect of the economy. You’re relying on the “one-drop” rule, which would imply that the existence of a public post office in the US means that the US is fully communist. That’s obviously ridiculous, private ownership is the principal aspect of the Statesian economy, but this is the limit of the “one-drop” rule.
Capitalism is a mode of production, not a class. I am not defending the permanent existence of the bourgeoisie, but instead defending a system where the bourgeoisie is waning and socialized production is rising. I am defending the transitional status as valid and moving, not a static, unmoving snapshot.
Removed by mod
I never excused billionaires, I only defended socialism. Please, explain how your vehemont opposition to any movement that does not immediately result in communism makes you a “real socialist.” How do you think communism is to come into existence, if not through socialism?
LMAO you talked big game about knowing our arguments and your understanding of Marxism is surface level at best
Typical Anarkiddie’s understanding of Communism.
Typical left unity.
I have no unity with people who oppose the Dictatorship of the Proletariate, and do not consider them part of the left. They are at best, misguided folks with their hearts in the right place, but far more often they are knowing Imperialist tools trying to suppress class consciousness.
Karl and Vlad aren’t exactly known for their concern for the environment or animal welfare beyond recognizing that things like soil fatigue and over-farming would eventually render it unfit for production to feed the humans. Anthropomorphic pragmatism at the expense of the ecosystem is a hard pass for me.
You’re telling me environmental sciences weren’t super advanced in the 1800s and 1910s I’m shocked. You people are so unserious. Socialism/Communism is the best shot we have at tackling these issues by removing the profit drive that necessitates exploitation at the very core of the current system. But sure let’s throw it all away because you don’t actually understand anything beyond vibes and idealist nonsense.
What’a shocking isn’t that they weren’t environmentally conscious in their time, it’s shocking that a hundred plus years on and their cultists will disregard environmental science to support statecraft over climate. You tanked are out here defending Team China billionaires vs Team America billionaires, but neither of your systems can produce one that earned their billions without exploiting the planet. The both of you greenwash your rape with climate pledges and carbon free goals but at the end of the day it’s because both states know if the states rape the planet hard enough they can’t exist. I’m serious as fuck, you can’t justify the existence of commie billionaires when confronted with their profiteering at the expense of the planet any better than a western capitalist so you disregard the argument. Your systems both value humans over the rest of the lives we share this rock with.
Cultists. Right. Because analyzing material conditions is cult behavior but trusting market signals that literally price extinction as an externality is rational. Marx and Engels wrote about the metabolic rift between society and nature in the 1860s. That is foundational ecological critique. You dismiss a century of development in socialist environmental theory because it does not match your moral aesthetic. China’s ecological civilization framework is not statecraft over climate. It is state capacity applied to climate. Binding targets in the 14th Five-Year Plan. Provincial cadre evaluations tied to environmental metrics. The world’s largest carbon market covering power generation. That is not disregard. That is planning.
Tankie is a thought-terminating slur. It replaces analysis with a label. Drop it. And commie billionaire is a contradiction in terms that you wield to avoid engaging with actually existing socialism. China’s billionaires operate within a system where the state controls land, finance, energy, and strategic industry. They are tolerated, regulated, and increasingly compressed under common prosperity. The number of billionaires in China has been shrinking. Platform economy crackdowns. Anti-monopoly fines. Wealth redistribution mechanisms. This is not capitalism with red flags. This is a transitional mode managing contradictions. Your false equivalence between a socialist state that directs capital and a capitalist state that is directed by it is either ignorance or bad faith.
Greenwash is a material accusation. Show the material. China manufactures over 70 percent of the world’s solar modules. Produces the majority of EVs and batteries. Built the largest electrified rail network on earth. Installed more renewable capacity in 2023 than the US has in its entire history. These are not pledges. These are material actions. Meanwhile the West offshores emissions, counts consumption poorly, and calls it progress. If this is greenwashing then the greenwash is building the actual infrastructure to decarbonize the global economy. Your rhetoric sounds radical but it erases the material difference between a system that plans for ecological transition and one that cannot because profit forbids it.
You are serious. And you are wrong. We do not justify billionaires. We analyze them. In China, private wealth is subordinated to social goals through party discipline, state finance, and industrial policy. When a tech billionaire’s company harms workers or the environment, the state intervenes. Fines. Restructuring. Public re-education. That does not happen under capitalism. It cannot. The profit motive is the law. Under socialism, the profit motive is a tool. A managed contradiction. We are reducing the number of billionaires. We are expanding public ownership in strategic sectors. We are directing investment toward green tech. If you want to fight billionaires, fight the system that produces them as a structural necessity. Not the one that is actively dismantling their power.
This is idealist nonsense. Valuing human flourishing is not opposed to valuing nature. The rift is created by capitalism, which treats both labor and nature as disposable inputs. Socialism seeks a rational metabolism between society and nature. That means clean air, restored soils, protected biodiversity, and stable climate because human survival depends on it. China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty while expanding forest coverage, controlling desertification, and leading global renewable deployment. That is not human-über-alles. That is recognizing that ecological health and human development are dialectically united. You can posture about deep ecology while the planet burns. We are building the material base to actually save it.
If you want to criticize, criticize from the left. Criticize from materialism. But do not equate a system that plans for ecological survival with one that structurally cannot. One of these systems is building the solar panels, the batteries, the rail, the grid. The other is writing net-zero pledges on paper while approving new oil fields. Pick a side based on what is being built, not on vibes.
China is at the forefront of combatting desertification, proliferation of solar, and electrification. This is made possible by strong central planning in a socialist market economy, and is entirely different from an economy that could transition to clean energy and strong environmental protections but refuses to for profit alone.
“The change is not good enough, better change nothing so the even worse status quo prevails”
The change is not good enough because is it still thinks humans are exceptional. Better argue over which political system is worse for our species while both exploits the planet so we can feel better about who was right when the status quo prevails. Yeah, your change isn’t good enough.
Anti-communist environmentalism is just imperialism and commodity fetishization with green wrapping paper.
The ending of fossil fuel energy and factory farming cannot come about under capitalism. It is baked into Communism.
You’ve had a few hundred years and a few attempts but even your allies in the comments can only offer that it’s being pledged and that there’s plans, eventually, maybe, we’re working on it. You can defend Chinese methods against a lot of western criticism, but seriously, the end of factory farming? They’re making no moves to address how they feed their people.
I didn’t say anything about China.
But since you brought them up: hey’re certainly now the cutting edge on renewable energy and smart grid tech. Agriculture emissions are still second place behind fossil fuel emissions, so for what my opinion is worth (not much) they’re following the right course by focusing on that first. But don’t be surprised if the next big innovation in reducing agriculture emissions comes out of an AES country. They’re certainly far more likely to devote massive resources to the problem than anywhere in the West.
lol… so in other words you mean recognizing environmental concern. Is this that materialism I keep hearing about?
Yeah. If you’re only concern is “how much can we exploit the environment until it’s unfit for human use”, you’re treating the environment like it’s a material for human consumption.
Elementary school level of understanding tells you that focusing on the benefit of land because it benefits humans is still a good thing. The more we focus on long term environmental goals the more we will tackle all facets of them, the PSL has written about it in modern language, and that’s only one org.
whining about theory gets you nowhere. I promise you you won’t meet leftists who feel good about factory farming.
You can do this kinda stuff on the internet all you’d like and call us cultists for our politics but if you’re going to engage with people like us you’re gonna get real answers based on material conditions (both future and past). Sorry it’s not the argument you want but eradicating capitalism will rapidly increase education and literacy, workplace independence and most importantly eradicate the drive for profit, as others have said, even in ways like profit driven FOOD and WATER consumption leading to over farming and wasting products that go moldy on the shelf because they’re too expensive, and on and on. Hurl insults all you want, you’d fit right in on Reddit
Well, it is impossible to work toward communism while trying to appease imperialists who are constantly attacking you - through propaganda, economic embargoes that starve your country, and actual bombs. Revolutions need to continue to spread internationally, and capitalism needs to be defeated globally…only then will we have communism. Workers of the world will finally lose their chains when this happens.
Exactly this. This idea that any country could just will itself into communism is deeply anti-materialist. If that were possible, it would have been done already. The fact that these vibes-based “socialists” always reject actually existing socialist states makes me suspect that they’re actually just racist.