Charity can serve as a means of control. This is way Republicans advocate against social services.
The government cannot mandate that you attend church to receive EBT. A church can require you attend a service to feed you.
I’ve heard from friends in Utah, for example, that access to many social services is through the church. Friend was trying to rescue a girl from FLDS - pretty much all job training/housing required she play along with mainstream Mormonism.
Orgs like the Salvation Army are known to require trans people to detransition to recieve services as well.
Another benefit is the rent seeking - Goodwill is a good example. You can still turn a profit with the right combination of PR, and tying access to services based on things that’ll make you profit (Goodwill “provides employment” for disabled people - they are legally allowed to pay them far below minimum wage.)
It’s the two pillars of the contemporary Right - control and grifting.
We will feed you if you believe in our religion and work our fields, your true reward for your good works and piety will wait for you in heaven.
It’s like your pension plan in the sky.
Communism Killed 100 Zillion People
Now the massive population of China and Venezuela and Vietnam and Cuba and California are going to take over the world
No, they aren’t doing Real Communism. That’s just Authoritarian State Capitalism.
Yes, we have to fight them. That’s why we need the western governments to spend trillions of dollars on private military services.
We have to kill all 100 Zillion of them. Because they’ve been infected with the Mind Virus of Communism.
I honestly can’t tell if this is sarcastic or not. There are too many people out there that sound just like this.
Communist logix
we need to abolish private property so everybody has equal power.
we class of people to maintain public ownership
After all, how can we enforce public ownership without a more powerful class of enforcers?
we need to abolish private property so everybody has equal power.
Abolishing private property isn’t about equalizing power, necessarily. It’s to end Capitalist production, which is necessarily exploitative and results in Monopoly Capitalism, aka Imperialism. Abolishing Private Property allows us to produce based on needs, not profits for a few individuals.
we class of people to maintain public ownership
Communists advocate for the abolition of classes.
After all, how can we enforce public ownership without a more powerful class of enforcers?
That’s a pretty terrible misreading of Communist structures. Communists advocate for abolition of the State, via creating a government as an “administration of things,” similar to how the Post Office functions, but for all of production. The goal of protecting the revolution is done by the Proletariat, the most advanced among them making up the Vanguard. There isn’t a separate “class.”
When you feed the poor, you’re called a Saint
When you ask why the poor have no food, you’re called a communist.
I work a couple food service jobs and the waste brings a tear to my eye. And that’s just what makes it to the restaurant. Oh this tomato doesn’t look perfect? Throw it away.
Perfect tomato’s for sale: $10 each.
Then the pile of perfect tomatos rot as hungry eyes look upon it from outside the store. (They aren’t allowed inside, the vagrants might steal!) Rotten like the hearts of those who gatekeep necessities for profit and power.
That just Is word for word the peak of "grapes of wrath "
“The oranges needed to be dumped in kerosene and burned. It is cheaper than dumping them in the river and making sure the poor don’t take them… why? All for the sake of profit”
“The good of the people” is a noble enough goal. Unfortunately, the people in charge of these movements are people who deliberately seek power, and for the most part, those people are vain greedy, brutal, a-holes.
People = problem
We’re always going to end up with people who can manipulate a crowd being in charge. We’re stupid like that.
This is what I always find amusing about the Communist argument.
Like, the elected politicians and bureaucracy can’t be trusted enough to regulate industry under capitalism so we’ll centralize things and then trust them to regulate industry under Communism?
Edit: whoof, should’ve thought about human nature when I dared to criticize communism. Almost lime there is another lesson somehwere there.
so, it’s the goddamn weekend. How does everyone have so much free time this late on a Saturday? I’ll do my best to get back to y’all on a dirty capitalist’s time slot.
Like, the elected politicians and bureaucracy can’t be trusted enough to regulate industry under capitalism so we’ll centralize things and then trust them to regulate industry under Communism?
If that’s your understanding of Communism, then you need to read The State and Revolution. Quite a lot of Communist theory is concerned with eliminating the concept of beauracracy.
When have attempts to reduce bureaucracy not yielded even more bureaucracy ? This isn’t a state V corporation issue either, bureaucracy thrives in both these places.
AES states.
Sahel states ?
Actually Existing Socialist States.
Such as ?
You do understand we can make loads of those about communism as well?
Capitalism has caused untold horrors.
Have you seen what horrors communism has caused, though? Ever tried looking at history? Maybe read up on the great Chinese famine? Maybe read up on how communism started in Russia? You know, maybe watch the movie “the Chekist”, great movie for those under the illusion that communism is a great thing. If your stomach can survive that movie, then yeah, you’re a diehard who is perfect for the next regime
You do realise none of the examples you brought up are actual communism. Theyre all bad attempts that were taken advantage of.
Thats like saying religion in general is bad because christianity ruined it
You realize that what you’re saying is basically “communism isn’t bad, all communist countries that failed just were communism that was being taken advantage of by assholes”
The exact same thing can be said about capitalism
Done well, with laws limiting it correctly, capitalism mixed with socialism sounds nice. Limit how much capital a single person can own and control using taxes, use those taxes for a social system where all the basics have been taken care of. Free healthcare, education, baosc housing, basic food.
Yes of course I realize it and Im often saying exactly that. The problem is when capital equals political power, which results in a downward spiral where as large a portion of the population as possible is kept at the bare minimum of survival for the benefit of the few.
