What points did I not address? I agree that I’m more optimistic than you were, but I don’t believe that’s without base. I could describe you as overly pessimistic.
Well? Did you study up in communist theory, or are you content always getting dunked on?
Also, please link us the thread where Cowbee “ignored your best points” so we can take a look at it. I’m curious to see what you’re talking about. I suspect you’re lying.
Sigh, Cowbee painstakingly engaged with you, displayed patience and empathy and kindness, and this is the route you went. Reading your comments, you’re completely and utterly clueless. You would do well to stop throwing mud at people who take time to help you parse your scattered “ideology” and instead do some reading and shut the fuck up.
As stated earlier, my best points were essentially ignored. If that’s what ‘getting dunked on’ means, I’m beyond fine with it lol
I don’t know how this is mud throwing when he describes himself as an optimist and at the same time was the ‘clueless one’ on what a moderately conservative communist stands for.
I love your take though, especially the ‘parse your scattered ideology’ bit, that was hilarious. I believe Cowbee has been clued in on my perspective despite my own cluelessness haha
I read through your thread with Cowbee that chloroken had listed and am still confused what you mean by a moderately conservative communist. Can you elaborate why you choose to describe a communist, essentially a person who wants to bring change, as conservative, which means to oppose change?
The thread already highlights this, but the target of the change dictates the label.
You are assuming capitalism is the steady baseline and communism is the disruption. But in reality, global capital is the true revolutionary force. It constantly tears apart the planet, destroying ecosystems just to keep expanding. It is insanely radical.
So if capital is the radical disruption, then what does it mean to be a conservative? ‘oppose change’ certainly doesn’t cover it or much of anything at all. It means you want to conserve the basic conditions of life against this chaos. I am a communist because it takes a radical break to stop capital, but I am a conservative because the whole point is to defend the physical world from its destructive progress. Communist means, conservative ends.
I feel like your true definition of ‘change’ means ‘movement toward liberation’ if you could only be more specific. If a train is heading towards a cliff, hitting the brakes is conservative in the literal sense, but it is also the only sane and radical thing to do. You need a revolutionary tool (communism) to apply the brakes, but the goal is ultimately conservative (keeping the train from crashing).
Conservative doesn’t mean what you think it does. Conservative means not changing the state at all. Capitalism is the status quo. Communism is something new, something untried, that resolves to break the status quo. Conserving the environment means to stop whatever actions we are doing to change it. Usually people mean stopping the destructive actions towards the environment, so it has eventually come to mean saving the environment/biodiversity, etc. That still doesn’t change the meaning of the word conservative, which means upholding the prevailing state of things.
If a train is heading towards a cliff, hitting the brakes is conservative in the literal sense
Using your example, letting the train run is conservative, and hitting the brakes to stop it (changing the state) is radical.
Your mistake is treating capitalism as a static “status quo.” It isn’t. Capitalism is a dynamic process of constant, disruptive revolution. It actively destroys the ecological status quo every single day. So if “conservative” means upholding the prevailing state of things, then defending the physical world against capitalist expansion is conservative. You have to radically change the economy just to conserve the environment.
The train analogy only proves my point. If a train is accelerating toward a cliff, letting it run preserves the engine’s current operation, but it radically destroys the train. Hitting the brakes disrupts the engine’s operation in order to conserve the train. I want to disrupt the capitalist engine to conserve the physical world. Communist means, conservative ends.
I think you’re conflating ecological conservation and political conservatism. This seems like an argument that wouldn’t exist in a language that created a meaningful distinction between the two.
An individual that is protecting the rights of capital to cause rapid ecological damage, is doing so by seeking to preserve the power of private capital.
A leftist seeking to abolish the power of capital to conserve the environment is the radical in that case.
Communism through conservatism as I think you are describing it isn’t wrong, but it is at the very least confusing due to the clashing definitions of radical, conservative, and the targets of both changes and preservation of the structures.
Can you explain what I’ve posted that’s fanfiction? I won’t deny that I often copy and paste replies I’ve already written, as most topics discussed aren’t genuinely new and I’ve usually discussed them before and see no need to artisinally craft each response, but I do take the allegations of fan-fiction seriously. Do you have an example?
I’d believe it if I were a bystander, povoq is doing this extremely well if he wants to validate my points uncontested. As funny as it would be, I am not secretly a solarpunk admin.
Edit: Edie is clearly joking, for whoever is downvoting it. Edie isn’t actually accusing me of making an alt to argue with.
Almost all state sponsored or (worse) self-serving “theory” from AES is fan-fiction and has little to do with reality for obvious reasons. The same is of course usually true for so called economic theory from liberal capitalist states.
Marxist theory is unconnected to reality, yet Marxists have historically been so good at understanding and changing reality that you complain about that too🤔
Marxist theory in so far as it was actually written by Marx and marxists (as opposed to marxist-leninists, a deviant offshot that is mainly just post-hoc justifications for people that ursuped state power for personal gain), is largely in agreement with anarchist theory and most of what Marx wrote in his younger days was summaries and borderline plagiats of earlier anarchist and socialist thinkers. It has some flaws, especially in regards to materialism though, and Marx himself became a reactionary after having a fallout with people that showed him the flaws in his arguments.
Lenin wrote his most critical theory before the Bolsheviks succeeded in establishing socialism, for example, Imperialism, the Current Highest Stage of Capitalism was published in 1916, and built on his previous studies of imperialism via the Marxist method. Marxism-Leninism is the living Marxism carried forward to the era of imperialism, and is not a deviation from Marxism but a continuation of it. Marx never became a reactionary, it was the anarchist faction that failed to counter Marx and was thus expelled from the First International. Marx has no weaknesses with respect to materialism as far as I know.
It would help your points tremendously if you gave any examples of the flaws Marx supposedly has, or the ways Marxism-Leninism is a deviation, rather than a continuation. Instead, this seems to follow your strategy of subjectivism, just labeling things you don’t like as counter-revolutionary without critically analyzing them. If you could verbalize how and why you disagree with Marxism-Leninism and Marxism, it would help your arguments enormously, as it stands there’s 0 chance you’re convincing anyone here, who already largely agrees with Marxism-Leninism, or anyone looking on who can see the MLs bring receipts while you refuse to provide any.
I did provide plenty of arguments, but you seem to be so deep into the fan-fiction that you fail to understand them. And Materialism as proposed by Marx has little resemblence to how actual societies outside of some extreme resource starved communities work, and there is literally a hundred years plus of literature that shows so. That you still stick to a long disproven theory and see “no flaw” in it should give you plenty of thought about how up to date your other ideas are.
And yes, Lenin’s earlier works had very interested readers in the German state security aparatus at the time.
You did not provide arguments, you provided categorical declarations without backing them up or contextualizing them. Do you not see how enormously unproductive this is for bringing someone over to your side? Asserting that I simply “don’t understand” your supposed arguments is also not going to hold any water, everyone can see plain as day that I have carefully responded exactly to what you’ve been declaring.
As for materialism being disproven, again, you don’t explain how or why, you just say that it has been, and reference “a hundred plus years of literature” without giving any examples, or explaining how it’s supposedly wrong. Who are you trying to convince? Even for the sake of hypothetical, even if it was wrong, if your goal was to convince anyone of your argument, you’ve given them absolutely nothing to go off of to see if you’re correct. All you’ve done is legitimize Marx, Lenin, and myself with this level of logic.
As for Lenin’s theory, you still haven’t actually attacked it. You made the claim that it was all post-hoc, and when this was proven false, you deflected. This is just running away from the argument.
I ask you again: for what purpose are you commenting? Is this how you try to gain comrades in real life? Do you even try to do so?
What “obvious reasons?” The fact that socialist theory and history from socialists actually building socialism happens to back up their reasoning in most cases? There’s also critique and discussion of problems in existing socialism coming from AES countries as well. This is an utterly self-defeating argument that only validates those most removed from the actual practice of building socialism.
Again, to stress, your point is that we should inherently distrust those building socialism in real life, and only accept theory from those that are utterely disengaged from practice.
Further, there’s no critical examination of the merits of socialist theory and history produced by socialist countries on your part, the very fact that they are produced by the people actively building socialism is enough to discredit them in your views. Can you not see the logical trap? If you succeeded in building socialism and spoke about your experiences, successes, and failures, you would have to discredit yourself as fanfiction!
Should the merit of theory not be tested through practice?
Lol, you seriously think that the self-serving texts of counter-revolutionaries that ursurped control of the state are in any shape or form trustworthy? How removed from praxis and reality can you be?
From the provisional government that was formed after the February revolution that took power from the Tzar and started organizing elections, which the Bolshevik lost and then decided to take power by force.
The provisional government was a liberal, pro-capitalist government. The counter-revolutionary thing to do would be to protect the provisional government. Further, it was not a black and white case of the Bolsheviks losing elections, the various parties of the time formed coalitions, which legitimized the Bolshevik coalition, as well as the peasant elections that you’re ignoring.
I think the texts written by socialists building socialism are valuable insights into the actual struggles run into when building socialism. I also believe labeling them “counter-revolutionaries” without demonstrating how and why this is the case is an entirely ineffective means of argument, I’ve already made it clear that I consider socialist states to be real, and I back up those claims with historical and theoretical evidence when needed. Simply saying “no” is not an argument, and telling me I’m removed from praxis and reality when I know this isn’t the case is naked Ad Hominem.
I agree that simple claims do not make a state socialist. I never made claims to the contrary. What makes a state socialist is proletarian control of the state, and public ownership as the principal aspect of the economy. All practical reality, contrary to your position, backs up this position.
State capitalism refers to a bourgeois economy with heavy state planning, yet capitalist control of the state and the social surplus. Think the Republic of Korea, Singapore, etc. The NEP, China’s and Vietnam’s socialist market economies, all of these are largely differentiated from state capitalism through the class character of the state, and having public ownership as the principal aspect of the economy. Calling these “state capitalist” despite clear differences with the ROK, Singapore, etc. in form, direction, and results erases class from the state.
Socialist planned economies take this further, having been farther along in eliminating private property. The DPRK, Cuba, and mid-late USSR are all examples of this form of socialist economy. This is where it makes even less sense to describe these as “state capitalism,” you’re just using capitalism to refer to industrial production at this point. Such a clear mislabeling makes utter mud of how we view socialism.
This is not mere phraseology, but a practical investigation of what makes a class, which is defined by relation to ownership of the means of production. Administrators in socialism are not a “tiny ruling elite,” they are a subsection of the broader proletariat, and share equal ownership of the means of production in practical terms, not merely formal phrasemongering.
If the CPSU were a “tiny ruling elite,” they certainly sucked at being so! Certainly you can see the clear difference between salaried workers and capital owners entitling themselves to the near entirety of the social surplus?
Regarding the Russian revolution, I have read a great deal about it, as well as the period of early socialist construction, industrialization, collectivization, preparation for World War II, and the post-War economy, including reforms that weakened the socialist system and contributed partially towards its disollution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks were by no means counter-revolutionaries, even if you considered the NEP to be state capitalism, they abolished this and collectivized the economy.
There’s absolutely nothing backing what you’ve claimed. The Germans allowed Lenin to go to overthrow the Russian government precisely because they sought chaos, and even then it was dangerous for Lenin to do so as many people hated the idea. He had to travel covertly.
Regarding the Ad Hominem, no, I did no such thing.
You don’t get to make moral arguments that anyone takes seriously and you sure don’t get to criticize others arguments. Yours led you to support Rhodesia.
I don’t support any government, but I recognize the right of the Ukranian people to defend themselves against imperial aggression.
And you specifically should be very careful about calling other people “fash” given your long history of supporting authoritarian state-capitalist regimes or worse.
Do the people of Donetsk and Luhansk have a right to defend themselves against the Banderite regime in Kiev? That’s what the modern war spiraled out from, a Banderite coup spilling into a civil war.
As for state capitalism, I don’t support Singapore or the Republic of Korea. I support socialist market economies and socialist planned economies, as I support socialism in general, and there’s a wide gulf between state capitalism and socialism when it comes to which class is on top.
If you had written this in 2014 or shortly after, I would have agreed, but a lot has happend since then.
And I think we will have to agree to disagree about a self-proclaimed “vanguard” or party functionaries representing the working class in any shape or form.
Sure, a lot has indeed happened. I don’t think it invalidates my question.
Vanguards do not proclaim themselves as such, they become them through popular support from the people. This is not mere tautology, a vanguard cannot succeed in its aims alone, it requires the rest of the proletariat to rally behind it and legitimize it. It cannot be self-legitimizing.
Oh, but you do support a government in tangible terms because you support the war the regime is fighting and the atrocities it commits against its people. The regime literally kidnaps people off the street and forces them into fighting. You’ve openly stated many times that you support continuation of the war and that you stand on the side of a openly fascist regime. That makes you a fascist.
Also, imagine being over the age of 13 and using terms like authoritarian. 🤡
The term authoritarianism is utterly meaningless because all governments rely on coercion to maintain their authority. The state is fundamentally an instrument that’s used by the ruling class to maintain its dominance. The whole notion that political systems can be neatly categorized into authoritarian or democratic binaries is deeply infantile.
The reality is that every government derives its authority from its monopoly on legal violence. The ability to enforce laws, suppress dissent, and maintain order is derived from control over police, military, and judicial systems. Whether a government is labelled authoritarian or democratic, the fundamental basis of its power lies here. Therefore, the only meaningful questions to ask are which class interests it represents, and to what extent can it be held accountable to them.
What ultimately matters is which class controls the institutions of state violence. In capitalist democracies, the government represent the interests of the economic elites who fund political campaigns, own media outlets, and control key industries. Western public lacks the mechanisms necessary to hold the government to account, and the ruling class is disconnected from the broader population. That’s precisely what’s driving political discontent all across western sphere today. Meanwhile, in so-called authoritarian regimes, the ruling party serves the working class as seen in countries like China, Cuba, or Vietnam. Hence why there is widespread public trust in these government and they enjoy broad support from the masses.
To add to that, the whole idea of state capitalism is a misnomer. It basically says that while you have state owned enterprise, the internal capitalist relations within it remain largely the same. While that’s true, there is a fundamental difference here. Capitalism is a system where people who own capital hire workers to exploit there labor with the purpose of increasing their capital. The goal of capitalist enterprise is to create wealth for the owners with any social benefits being strictly incidental. On the other hand, the purpose of state enterprise is to provide social value. Workers in state owned companies are producing things that the society needs. They are working for their own benefit and those of others around them. Therefore, the nature of work itself is fundamentally different from actual capitalism.
I guess I shouldn’t be expecting much from somebody who equates a socialist state where means of production are publicly owned with fascism.
Nice, another vapid reply from our resident fascist troll. The reply wasn’t meant to convince you of anything since we all know exactly what you stand for. It’s to educate people on the misinformation you spread here and how to address it.
Yeah you, however in your case a good start would be needing to be able to read anything since you seem to be engaging and arguing with your eyes closed
the Ukranian people to defend themselves against imperial aggression.
The Ukranian people want an end to the war, and it’s only the US imperial puppet regime the live under that has decided to aggressively kidnap them into vans at gunpoint instead.
Full support to the brave Ukranians who kill draft officers.
Communism by itself isn’t bad, nor is capitalism, but both assume that their proponents are immune to greed, and that their opponent are full of it.
There are good things in both, bad things in both. The problem is to find people that are truly altruistic, and that have the moral fortitude to stay altruistic.
Edit: y’all can downvote all you want, I’ll stand by my opinion unless someone has the honesty to argue on that.
Capitalism doesn’t assume anything, it wasn’t thought of and created, it arose from the commodification of production and distribution towards the end of feudalism. It arose naturally, without a plan. Communism isn’t a “plan” either, Marx analyzed where capitalism was necessarily trending towards and saw that as production was socializing, profits were remaining private, creating sharper contradictions and crisis. Communism socializes the profits of production and distribution, and finishes capitalism’s socialization process.
Neither of them are built on any assumptions surrounding greed whatsoever.
Heavily disagree, friend. Capitalism by itself is bad. It may have good things, but that hardly justifies the inhuman and cruel roots it stands on. Capitalism does not assume that its proponents should be free of greed, it wants them to be greedy. Why the hell would you want to keep expanding your money if not for greed? Capitalism runs on this principle of self expanding value and inequal exchanges. It strives for profit, nothing else. I haven’t studied communism well enough, but communism doesn’t assume it’s proponents to be immune to greed, it dismantles the institutions by which greed operates(money, class, and state).
You still believe in human nature detached from material conditions, which is an idealist position. There’s nothing convincing anyone can say to you until you challenge this position.
Can you list the good parts of capitalism? If you say the free market, capitalism doesn’t have a monopoly on that concept. Socialism and communism have free market aspects too, but they centralize control of resources so that 5 people can’t drain everything and ascend to the top.
Both having a form of free market doesn’t make it suddenly good for one side and bad for the other.
Some sort of free market is good, so new idea can brew, some of them being one day attempted, other won’t because it ends up either not getting traction, or would very obviously fail after some research.
Problem is with too much planning is that it doesn’t give as much place for innovation, as well as put too much weight on a single point of failure.
That played a good part in the USSR famines, like the holodomor, which was then further aggravated by their unwillingness to admit they fucked up, blaming it on other factors.
But if they had learned from their mistakes, it would have improved, but unfortunately those very same error were repeated multiple time (see the multiple famines the USSR faced while strangely their western counterparts did not).
And I’ll pass on the other similar failures (Chernobyl, among other), that follow the very same pattern.
Of course, the USSR had some very clear wins, like the first part of the race to space, and others.
The USSR could have been a success if their leader weren’t selfish idiots, which os a shame since I’d rather live in a good cummunism regime than a good capitalism regime.
I always worked toward such ideals, I contributed to some open-source project (Gnome, KDE, mostly translation, bug report, but also some packaging for OpenSUSE and Fedora.
I’m a bit tired of those who blindly follow ideologies without having the intellectual honesty to recognize where said ideology fucked up and where it was great. Do I have to be called a social-traitor for every reflection on communism or socialism?
I doubt Marx would be happy to see those he tried to enlighten sheepishly follow whoever yell the loudest… Even if they yell parta of what he tried to teach them.
You’re contradicting yourself a bit. You reference capitalism as being good for innovation, but then reference the technological advances the soviets made, beating the US into space. You say the Soviets didn’t learn from the 1930s famine, but it was the last famine outside of wartime in the Soviet Union.
It’s also a blunder to blame all problems on leadership. The USSR was run collectively, and the leadership was not uniquely “stupid,” they were in general very competent. They were also not especially selfish. Some leaders were better or worse than others, but the Soviet Union was run by the mass proletariat, with the CPSU as the organized element.
But if they had learned from their mistakes, it would have improved, but unfortunately those very same error were repeated multiple time (see the multiple famines the USSR faced while strangely their western counterparts did not.
What other famine after holodomor? I can only think of one but was during siege from the nazis.
1921-1922 (Povolzhye, or Volga famine), 5-10 millions dreath
1932-1933 (Holodomor), 3.5 to 7 millions death in Ukraine alone
1930-1933 (Asharshylyk), 1.5 million deaths (seem small, but that was 40% of then Kazakhstan population)
1932-1933 (at the same time than the Holodomor, but in Russia) : 1 to 2 millions deaths
1946-1947: 1 to 1.5 millions deaths
And that’s only those who were big enough to be impossible to hide completely.
All of them have something in common: the central government minimised them, and tried to hide them. Some weren’t even acknowledged until after the USSR fall.
All of them are a combination of bad luck (war, drought) combined with hasty decisions which made what could have been a hard year a generational disaster.
You’re referring to a famine at the outset of the USSR coming from civil war, referring to the 1930s famine as 3 separate famines, and blaming the famine caused by Nazi invasion on the Soviets. There’s good reason that’s all you have to bring up.
Question: “what famines occurred because the Soviets didn’t learn from the 1933 famine?”
Answer: A famine from -before- that famine, the famine you’re being asked to name one after, TWO OTHER FAMINES THAT HAPPENED THE SAME YEAR, and the one that happened because the fucking nazis invaded
It’s also exceptionally bad faith to treat it as three famines while it was a single one occuring on huge areas. But once we learn it, the entire “holodomor” narration shatter immediately.
Except all your examples from communism are from 80 years ago at least and capitalism is currently failing. The main reason communism failed is because it was under siege for it’s entire existence and yet, after 1947 they stopped the famines, reindustrialized and won the space race. The same isn’t true for the capitalist world, they are doing the siege.
Neither capitalism nor communism assume that their proponents are immune to greed. Capitalism was developed as an improvement over (European) feudalism and mercantilism. The idea is that division of labour expands the quantity and diversity of goods that can be produced. Communism is similarly supposed to be an improvement on capitalism. Here, the idea is that centralised planning can improve the distribution of the produced goods (and further improve the quantity and diversity of goods).
I would argue capitalism is bad in nature, but people confuse free markets as being inherit to capitalism, which it is not.
Capitalism at its core is about ownership, in that those with money own a thing and thus make the decisions. This results in an Oligarchy controlling the market.
Communism in contrast is about collective ownership in that those that produce, own and make the decisions. However in practice, that ownership get usurped by “the state” which basically translates to an oligarchy through control of the market.
This is why I like the term, free market socialism. Ownership should be held by the producers, but the state should not control the market. The role of government in the market should be limited to monopoly prevention.
Ownership by the socialist state is the only way to actually collectivize production and distribution, and thereby end class society and the basis of the state. Ownership at a societal level is the solution, not at the level of individual producers. What you are creating is a form of cooperative-based economy that replicates the larger problems with capitalism, and prevents the transition to classless society run to fulfill the needs of everyone.
The state ownership of production is deliberate, and aimed at improving efficiency and allowing forward planning. One (or a few, if you want competition) large factory is more efficient than a bunch of smaller workshops. State ownership can lead to corruption, as you pointed out, but it is a conscious choice and not happenstance.
I would argue that state facilitation is superior to state control.
A small government that does not interfere with the initiative of individuals and groups.
You don’t need central control and orchistration when you have our level of communication technology. That’s only required when your communication channels are limited.
The state at national level should be limited to providing facilitation, infrastructure, defence and foreign policy. Independent Local governments should provide the bulk of public services.
I trust collective decision making a lot more than central decision making for optimising a system.
State ownership has both advantages and disadvantages; I just wanted to point out that it was a deliberate choice.
The state at national level should be limited to providing facilitation, infrastructure, defence and foreign policy. Independent Local governments should provide the bulk of public services.
What do you do when some regions are poorer than others, or one gets hit by a natural disaster? Again, it isn’t black and white. There are advantages to both centralisation and devolution.
I agree never a one size fits all situation. I do not have much confidence in central planning, since that has the longest track record in failure. Both in governments and in corporations.
A natural disaster would be handled by regional or national disaster response agencies. Much like it is now in western countries.
Regarding wealth or resource imbalance between poorer and richer areas, this is where I think the current status quo is the problem. Since after the industrial revolution, the high productivity of cities has been subsidizing the wealth of the suburbs and rural areas to the significant detriment of overall productivity.
We need to rethink the infrastructure standards outside of cities. Right now the suburb sprawl of single homes with large yards, malls and massive parking lots and roads are utterly unsustainable.
Its are hampering the productive capacity, food quality and security provided by rural land. What this looks like is a lot like older european villages. People live relatively densely surrounded by farmland and pasture. Car ownership is low since you can walk or bike anywhere, or there is a tram or bus to where you need to go. I would also point out that much of this infrastructure was developed and maintained locally with little to no central government.
Once you stop the subsidization and change the role to be something more sustainable, you will find that the wealth and productive density per person will balance according to the inherit environmental factors to a much larger degree.
I also want to highlight is that a lack of central control and planning does not prevent collaboration and coordination from occuring between entities. Our modern communication technology makes this possible to a degree that the founders of socialism and communism could never have anticipated.
Much like industrialization has changed the world order, the communication revolution has done the same. The political and economic sciences are still playing catchup.
since that has the longest track record in failure
Failure in achieving what?
A natural disaster would be handled by regional or national disaster response agencies.
How would there be a national disaster response agency without central planning? Who would fund it? Who would run it?
Since after the industrial revolution, the high productivity of cities has been subsidizing the wealth of the suburbs and rural areas to the significant detriment of overall productivity.
Are cities actually more productive, or is their higher productivity subsidised by rural areas?
you will find that the wealth and productive density per person will balance according to the inherit environmental factors to a much larger degree.
Perhaps, but is that what you want? The resource-poor societies of Central Asia lie between theresource-rich China and Europe. Would a theoretical Eurasian government not want to subsidise people living in these regions, so that they can service the trade routes between China and Europe?
a lack of central control and planning does not prevent collaboration and coordination from occuring between entities.
Who mediates disputes, and who enforces their decisions?
Cowbee is a prominent user on Lemmy who is a communist and frequently picks apart anti-communist comments.
Gotcha, I’m terrible with names.
Removed by mod
What points did I not address? I agree that I’m more optimistic than you were, but I don’t believe that’s without base. I could describe you as overly pessimistic.
Well? Did you study up in communist theory, or are you content always getting dunked on?
Also, please link us the thread where Cowbee “ignored your best points” so we can take a look at it. I’m curious to see what you’re talking about. I suspect you’re lying.
Edit: https://lemmy.world/comment/23871382
Sigh, Cowbee painstakingly engaged with you, displayed patience and empathy and kindness, and this is the route you went. Reading your comments, you’re completely and utterly clueless. You would do well to stop throwing mud at people who take time to help you parse your scattered “ideology” and instead do some reading and shut the fuck up.
As stated earlier, my best points were essentially ignored. If that’s what ‘getting dunked on’ means, I’m beyond fine with it lol
I don’t know how this is mud throwing when he describes himself as an optimist and at the same time was the ‘clueless one’ on what a moderately conservative communist stands for.
I love your take though, especially the ‘parse your scattered ideology’ bit, that was hilarious. I believe Cowbee has been clued in on my perspective despite my own cluelessness haha
Thank you for linking the comment thread for me.
I read through your thread with Cowbee that chloroken had listed and am still confused what you mean by a moderately conservative communist. Can you elaborate why you choose to describe a communist, essentially a person who wants to bring change, as conservative, which means to oppose change?
The thread already highlights this, but the target of the change dictates the label.
You are assuming capitalism is the steady baseline and communism is the disruption. But in reality, global capital is the true revolutionary force. It constantly tears apart the planet, destroying ecosystems just to keep expanding. It is insanely radical.
So if capital is the radical disruption, then what does it mean to be a conservative? ‘oppose change’ certainly doesn’t cover it or much of anything at all. It means you want to conserve the basic conditions of life against this chaos. I am a communist because it takes a radical break to stop capital, but I am a conservative because the whole point is to defend the physical world from its destructive progress. Communist means, conservative ends.
I feel like your true definition of ‘change’ means ‘movement toward liberation’ if you could only be more specific. If a train is heading towards a cliff, hitting the brakes is conservative in the literal sense, but it is also the only sane and radical thing to do. You need a revolutionary tool (communism) to apply the brakes, but the goal is ultimately conservative (keeping the train from crashing).
Conservationist.
Conservative doesn’t mean what you think it does. Conservative means not changing the state at all. Capitalism is the status quo. Communism is something new, something untried, that resolves to break the status quo. Conserving the environment means to stop whatever actions we are doing to change it. Usually people mean stopping the destructive actions towards the environment, so it has eventually come to mean saving the environment/biodiversity, etc. That still doesn’t change the meaning of the word conservative, which means upholding the prevailing state of things.
Using your example, letting the train run is conservative, and hitting the brakes to stop it (changing the state) is radical.
Your mistake is treating capitalism as a static “status quo.” It isn’t. Capitalism is a dynamic process of constant, disruptive revolution. It actively destroys the ecological status quo every single day. So if “conservative” means upholding the prevailing state of things, then defending the physical world against capitalist expansion is conservative. You have to radically change the economy just to conserve the environment.
The train analogy only proves my point. If a train is accelerating toward a cliff, letting it run preserves the engine’s current operation, but it radically destroys the train. Hitting the brakes disrupts the engine’s operation in order to conserve the train. I want to disrupt the capitalist engine to conserve the physical world. Communist means, conservative ends.
I think you’re conflating ecological conservation and political conservatism. This seems like an argument that wouldn’t exist in a language that created a meaningful distinction between the two.
An individual that is protecting the rights of capital to cause rapid ecological damage, is doing so by seeking to preserve the power of private capital.
A leftist seeking to abolish the power of capital to conserve the environment is the radical in that case.
Communism through conservatism as I think you are describing it isn’t wrong, but it is at the very least confusing due to the clashing definitions of radical, conservative, and the targets of both changes and preservation of the structures.
Once again for the sake of clarity
Ecologic conservation, cultural/sociatal conservation ≠ economic conservatism.
Sticking the terms together is kinda just confusing
You’re playing on semantics
He thoroughly broke down your points, you just refused to agree.
I think you might have some things to work on. I wish you well on the journey of self discovery
Yes and I suspect you too may be a sentient life-force. Stay safe
You mean they dump copy-pasta fan-fiction about AES everywhere.
Can you explain what I’ve posted that’s fanfiction? I won’t deny that I often copy and paste replies I’ve already written, as most topics discussed aren’t genuinely new and I’ve usually discussed them before and see no need to artisinally craft each response, but I do take the allegations of fan-fiction seriously. Do you have an example?
Povoq is like… Your alt, right? The comments are essentially made to make you look reasonable and the other person ridiculous.
I’d believe it if I were a bystander, povoq is doing this extremely well if he wants to validate my points uncontested. As funny as it would be, I am not secretly a solarpunk admin.
Edit: Edie is clearly joking, for whoever is downvoting it. Edie isn’t actually accusing me of making an alt to argue with.
Almost all state sponsored or (worse) self-serving “theory” from AES is fan-fiction and has little to do with reality for obvious reasons. The same is of course usually true for so called economic theory from liberal capitalist states.
Marxist theory is unconnected to reality, yet Marxists have historically been so good at understanding and changing reality that you complain about that too🤔
Marxist theory in so far as it was actually written by Marx and marxists (as opposed to marxist-leninists, a deviant offshot that is mainly just post-hoc justifications for people that ursuped state power for personal gain), is largely in agreement with anarchist theory and most of what Marx wrote in his younger days was summaries and borderline plagiats of earlier anarchist and socialist thinkers. It has some flaws, especially in regards to materialism though, and Marx himself became a reactionary after having a fallout with people that showed him the flaws in his arguments.
Lenin wrote his most critical theory before the Bolsheviks succeeded in establishing socialism, for example, Imperialism, the Current Highest Stage of Capitalism was published in 1916, and built on his previous studies of imperialism via the Marxist method. Marxism-Leninism is the living Marxism carried forward to the era of imperialism, and is not a deviation from Marxism but a continuation of it. Marx never became a reactionary, it was the anarchist faction that failed to counter Marx and was thus expelled from the First International. Marx has no weaknesses with respect to materialism as far as I know.
It would help your points tremendously if you gave any examples of the flaws Marx supposedly has, or the ways Marxism-Leninism is a deviation, rather than a continuation. Instead, this seems to follow your strategy of subjectivism, just labeling things you don’t like as counter-revolutionary without critically analyzing them. If you could verbalize how and why you disagree with Marxism-Leninism and Marxism, it would help your arguments enormously, as it stands there’s 0 chance you’re convincing anyone here, who already largely agrees with Marxism-Leninism, or anyone looking on who can see the MLs bring receipts while you refuse to provide any.
I did provide plenty of arguments, but you seem to be so deep into the fan-fiction that you fail to understand them. And Materialism as proposed by Marx has little resemblence to how actual societies outside of some extreme resource starved communities work, and there is literally a hundred years plus of literature that shows so. That you still stick to a long disproven theory and see “no flaw” in it should give you plenty of thought about how up to date your other ideas are.
And yes, Lenin’s earlier works had very interested readers in the German state security aparatus at the time.
You did not provide arguments, you provided categorical declarations without backing them up or contextualizing them. Do you not see how enormously unproductive this is for bringing someone over to your side? Asserting that I simply “don’t understand” your supposed arguments is also not going to hold any water, everyone can see plain as day that I have carefully responded exactly to what you’ve been declaring.
As for materialism being disproven, again, you don’t explain how or why, you just say that it has been, and reference “a hundred plus years of literature” without giving any examples, or explaining how it’s supposedly wrong. Who are you trying to convince? Even for the sake of hypothetical, even if it was wrong, if your goal was to convince anyone of your argument, you’ve given them absolutely nothing to go off of to see if you’re correct. All you’ve done is legitimize Marx, Lenin, and myself with this level of logic.
As for Lenin’s theory, you still haven’t actually attacked it. You made the claim that it was all post-hoc, and when this was proven false, you deflected. This is just running away from the argument.
I ask you again: for what purpose are you commenting? Is this how you try to gain comrades in real life? Do you even try to do so?
What “obvious reasons?” The fact that socialist theory and history from socialists actually building socialism happens to back up their reasoning in most cases? There’s also critique and discussion of problems in existing socialism coming from AES countries as well. This is an utterly self-defeating argument that only validates those most removed from the actual practice of building socialism.
Again, to stress, your point is that we should inherently distrust those building socialism in real life, and only accept theory from those that are utterely disengaged from practice.
Further, there’s no critical examination of the merits of socialist theory and history produced by socialist countries on your part, the very fact that they are produced by the people actively building socialism is enough to discredit them in your views. Can you not see the logical trap? If you succeeded in building socialism and spoke about your experiences, successes, and failures, you would have to discredit yourself as fanfiction!
Should the merit of theory not be tested through practice?
Lol, you seriously think that the self-serving texts of counter-revolutionaries that ursurped control of the state are in any shape or form trustworthy? How removed from praxis and reality can you be?
Usurped control of the state from…who?
From the provisional government that was formed after the February revolution that took power from the Tzar and started organizing elections, which the Bolshevik lost and then decided to take power by force.
The provisional government was a liberal, pro-capitalist government. The counter-revolutionary thing to do would be to protect the provisional government. Further, it was not a black and white case of the Bolsheviks losing elections, the various parties of the time formed coalitions, which legitimized the Bolshevik coalition, as well as the peasant elections that you’re ignoring.
I think the texts written by socialists building socialism are valuable insights into the actual struggles run into when building socialism. I also believe labeling them “counter-revolutionaries” without demonstrating how and why this is the case is an entirely ineffective means of argument, I’ve already made it clear that I consider socialist states to be real, and I back up those claims with historical and theoretical evidence when needed. Simply saying “no” is not an argument, and telling me I’m removed from praxis and reality when I know this isn’t the case is naked Ad Hominem.
Removed by mod
I agree that simple claims do not make a state socialist. I never made claims to the contrary. What makes a state socialist is proletarian control of the state, and public ownership as the principal aspect of the economy. All practical reality, contrary to your position, backs up this position.
State capitalism refers to a bourgeois economy with heavy state planning, yet capitalist control of the state and the social surplus. Think the Republic of Korea, Singapore, etc. The NEP, China’s and Vietnam’s socialist market economies, all of these are largely differentiated from state capitalism through the class character of the state, and having public ownership as the principal aspect of the economy. Calling these “state capitalist” despite clear differences with the ROK, Singapore, etc. in form, direction, and results erases class from the state.
Socialist planned economies take this further, having been farther along in eliminating private property. The DPRK, Cuba, and mid-late USSR are all examples of this form of socialist economy. This is where it makes even less sense to describe these as “state capitalism,” you’re just using capitalism to refer to industrial production at this point. Such a clear mislabeling makes utter mud of how we view socialism.
This is not mere phraseology, but a practical investigation of what makes a class, which is defined by relation to ownership of the means of production. Administrators in socialism are not a “tiny ruling elite,” they are a subsection of the broader proletariat, and share equal ownership of the means of production in practical terms, not merely formal phrasemongering.
If the CPSU were a “tiny ruling elite,” they certainly sucked at being so! Certainly you can see the clear difference between salaried workers and capital owners entitling themselves to the near entirety of the social surplus?
Regarding the Russian revolution, I have read a great deal about it, as well as the period of early socialist construction, industrialization, collectivization, preparation for World War II, and the post-War economy, including reforms that weakened the socialist system and contributed partially towards its disollution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks were by no means counter-revolutionaries, even if you considered the NEP to be state capitalism, they abolished this and collectivized the economy.
There’s absolutely nothing backing what you’ve claimed. The Germans allowed Lenin to go to overthrow the Russian government precisely because they sought chaos, and even then it was dangerous for Lenin to do so as many people hated the idea. He had to travel covertly.
Regarding the Ad Hominem, no, I did no such thing.
You literally supported Rhodesia.
You don’t get to make moral arguments that anyone takes seriously and you sure don’t get to criticize others arguments. Yours led you to support Rhodesia.
Holy shit? There are Rhodesia apologists on Lemmy?
I searched Rhodesia and this one was in the first page of the results. Is this satire? https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/article/rhodesia-brief-history-magnificent-country
I honestly can’t tell. Former Rhodesians and Rhodesia apologists are kinda fucking like that.
It’s like finding a legendary pokemon, if a pokemon said racial slurs
Lol, you continue to make up funny stories that have nothing to do with reality. I never “supported Rhodesia”.
you do support the fascist regime in Ukraine tho, or gonna pretend that’s also a funny story fash?
I don’t support any government, but I recognize the right of the Ukranian people to defend themselves against imperial aggression.
And you specifically should be very careful about calling other people “fash” given your long history of supporting authoritarian state-capitalist regimes or worse.
Do the people of Donetsk and Luhansk have a right to defend themselves against the Banderite regime in Kiev? That’s what the modern war spiraled out from, a Banderite coup spilling into a civil war.
As for state capitalism, I don’t support Singapore or the Republic of Korea. I support socialist market economies and socialist planned economies, as I support socialism in general, and there’s a wide gulf between state capitalism and socialism when it comes to which class is on top.
If you had written this in 2014 or shortly after, I would have agreed, but a lot has happend since then.
And I think we will have to agree to disagree about a self-proclaimed “vanguard” or party functionaries representing the working class in any shape or form.
Sure, a lot has indeed happened. I don’t think it invalidates my question.
Vanguards do not proclaim themselves as such, they become them through popular support from the people. This is not mere tautology, a vanguard cannot succeed in its aims alone, it requires the rest of the proletariat to rally behind it and legitimize it. It cannot be self-legitimizing.
Oh, but you do support a government in tangible terms because you support the war the regime is fighting and the atrocities it commits against its people. The regime literally kidnaps people off the street and forces them into fighting. You’ve openly stated many times that you support continuation of the war and that you stand on the side of a openly fascist regime. That makes you a fascist.
Also, imagine being over the age of 13 and using terms like authoritarian. 🤡
The term authoritarianism is utterly meaningless because all governments rely on coercion to maintain their authority. The state is fundamentally an instrument that’s used by the ruling class to maintain its dominance. The whole notion that political systems can be neatly categorized into authoritarian or democratic binaries is deeply infantile.
The reality is that every government derives its authority from its monopoly on legal violence. The ability to enforce laws, suppress dissent, and maintain order is derived from control over police, military, and judicial systems. Whether a government is labelled authoritarian or democratic, the fundamental basis of its power lies here. Therefore, the only meaningful questions to ask are which class interests it represents, and to what extent can it be held accountable to them.
What ultimately matters is which class controls the institutions of state violence. In capitalist democracies, the government represent the interests of the economic elites who fund political campaigns, own media outlets, and control key industries. Western public lacks the mechanisms necessary to hold the government to account, and the ruling class is disconnected from the broader population. That’s precisely what’s driving political discontent all across western sphere today. Meanwhile, in so-called authoritarian regimes, the ruling party serves the working class as seen in countries like China, Cuba, or Vietnam. Hence why there is widespread public trust in these government and they enjoy broad support from the masses.
To add to that, the whole idea of state capitalism is a misnomer. It basically says that while you have state owned enterprise, the internal capitalist relations within it remain largely the same. While that’s true, there is a fundamental difference here. Capitalism is a system where people who own capital hire workers to exploit there labor with the purpose of increasing their capital. The goal of capitalist enterprise is to create wealth for the owners with any social benefits being strictly incidental. On the other hand, the purpose of state enterprise is to provide social value. Workers in state owned companies are producing things that the society needs. They are working for their own benefit and those of others around them. Therefore, the nature of work itself is fundamentally different from actual capitalism.
I guess I shouldn’t be expecting much from somebody who equates a socialist state where means of production are publicly owned with fascism.
Nice, another copy-pasta fan-fiction from someone that needs to read more theory 😏
Do you have theory to suggest?
Nice, another vapid reply from our resident fascist troll. The reply wasn’t meant to convince you of anything since we all know exactly what you stand for. It’s to educate people on the misinformation you spread here and how to address it.
You fool! Once again you have defeated yourself by exceeding my attention span!
Yeah you, however in your case a good start would be needing to be able to read anything since you seem to be engaging and arguing with your eyes closed
Dictionary: libspeak to english
The Ukranian people want an end to the war, and it’s only the US imperial puppet regime the live under that has decided to aggressively kidnap them into vans at gunpoint instead.
Full support to the brave Ukranians who kill draft officers.
This entire argument except the being a US puppet part can be flipped to Russia
Cats can be flipped to dogs if you don’t give a shit what’s real, but most people do.
go home fash
Communism by itself isn’t bad, nor is capitalism, but both assume that their proponents are immune to greed, and that their opponent are full of it.
There are good things in both, bad things in both. The problem is to find people that are truly altruistic, and that have the moral fortitude to stay altruistic.
Edit: y’all can downvote all you want, I’ll stand by my opinion unless someone has the honesty to argue on that.
Capitalism doesn’t assume anything, it wasn’t thought of and created, it arose from the commodification of production and distribution towards the end of feudalism. It arose naturally, without a plan. Communism isn’t a “plan” either, Marx analyzed where capitalism was necessarily trending towards and saw that as production was socializing, profits were remaining private, creating sharper contradictions and crisis. Communism socializes the profits of production and distribution, and finishes capitalism’s socialization process.
Neither of them are built on any assumptions surrounding greed whatsoever.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
And he wants someone to “honestly argue with him” LMAO.
Heavily disagree, friend. Capitalism by itself is bad. It may have good things, but that hardly justifies the inhuman and cruel roots it stands on. Capitalism does not assume that its proponents should be free of greed, it wants them to be greedy. Why the hell would you want to keep expanding your money if not for greed? Capitalism runs on this principle of self expanding value and inequal exchanges. It strives for profit, nothing else. I haven’t studied communism well enough, but communism doesn’t assume it’s proponents to be immune to greed, it dismantles the institutions by which greed operates(money, class, and state).
Read Marx
Already done, lot a good ideas, some ideas I don’t agree with, but an enlightening read nonetheless.
The part I disagree the most about are free competition.
I promise you that we all know you haven’t read Marxist works. No need to lie.
That was part of my philosophy class, the book is probably still at my father house.
Which book?
You still believe in human nature detached from material conditions, which is an idealist position. There’s nothing convincing anyone can say to you until you challenge this position.
Can you list the good parts of capitalism? If you say the free market, capitalism doesn’t have a monopoly on that concept. Socialism and communism have free market aspects too, but they centralize control of resources so that 5 people can’t drain everything and ascend to the top.
Both having a form of free market doesn’t make it suddenly good for one side and bad for the other.
Some sort of free market is good, so new idea can brew, some of them being one day attempted, other won’t because it ends up either not getting traction, or would very obviously fail after some research.
Problem is with too much planning is that it doesn’t give as much place for innovation, as well as put too much weight on a single point of failure. That played a good part in the USSR famines, like the holodomor, which was then further aggravated by their unwillingness to admit they fucked up, blaming it on other factors. But if they had learned from their mistakes, it would have improved, but unfortunately those very same error were repeated multiple time (see the multiple famines the USSR faced while strangely their western counterparts did not).
And I’ll pass on the other similar failures (Chernobyl, among other), that follow the very same pattern.
Of course, the USSR had some very clear wins, like the first part of the race to space, and others.
The USSR could have been a success if their leader weren’t selfish idiots, which os a shame since I’d rather live in a good cummunism regime than a good capitalism regime.
I always worked toward such ideals, I contributed to some open-source project (Gnome, KDE, mostly translation, bug report, but also some packaging for OpenSUSE and Fedora.
I’m a bit tired of those who blindly follow ideologies without having the intellectual honesty to recognize where said ideology fucked up and where it was great. Do I have to be called a social-traitor for every reflection on communism or socialism? I doubt Marx would be happy to see those he tried to enlighten sheepishly follow whoever yell the loudest… Even if they yell parta of what he tried to teach them.
You’re contradicting yourself a bit. You reference capitalism as being good for innovation, but then reference the technological advances the soviets made, beating the US into space. You say the Soviets didn’t learn from the 1930s famine, but it was the last famine outside of wartime in the Soviet Union.
It’s also a blunder to blame all problems on leadership. The USSR was run collectively, and the leadership was not uniquely “stupid,” they were in general very competent. They were also not especially selfish. Some leaders were better or worse than others, but the Soviet Union was run by the mass proletariat, with the CPSU as the organized element.
What other famine after holodomor? I can only think of one but was during siege from the nazis.
And that’s only those who were big enough to be impossible to hide completely.
All of them have something in common: the central government minimised them, and tried to hide them. Some weren’t even acknowledged until after the USSR fall. All of them are a combination of bad luck (war, drought) combined with hasty decisions which made what could have been a hard year a generational disaster.
You’re referring to a famine at the outset of the USSR coming from civil war, referring to the 1930s famine as 3 separate famines, and blaming the famine caused by Nazi invasion on the Soviets. There’s good reason that’s all you have to bring up.
Question: “what famines occurred because the Soviets didn’t learn from the 1933 famine?”
Answer: A famine from -before- that famine, the famine you’re being asked to name one after, TWO OTHER FAMINES THAT HAPPENED THE SAME YEAR, and the one that happened because the fucking nazis invaded
What a mixture of bad faith and just plain stupid
It’s also exceptionally bad faith to treat it as three famines while it was a single one occuring on huge areas. But once we learn it, the entire “holodomor” narration shatter immediately.
So, to summarize, there was exactly one famine after the 32-33 one, and it came immediately after the USSR was devastated by ww2
All have something in common: The capitalist core ignored people, caused wars or restricted economic at their periphery and let millions them die.
The death toll by the capitalist empires are way higher and going way more recent in history.
Which comes back to my main argument: both have failed, so either both are bad, or we have a people problem instead of a system problem.
Except all your examples from communism are from 80 years ago at least and capitalism is currently failing. The main reason communism failed is because it was under siege for it’s entire existence and yet, after 1947 they stopped the famines, reindustrialized and won the space race. The same isn’t true for the capitalist world, they are doing the siege.
Neither capitalism nor communism assume that their proponents are immune to greed. Capitalism was developed as an improvement over (European) feudalism and mercantilism. The idea is that division of labour expands the quantity and diversity of goods that can be produced. Communism is similarly supposed to be an improvement on capitalism. Here, the idea is that centralised planning can improve the distribution of the produced goods (and further improve the quantity and diversity of goods).
I would argue capitalism is bad in nature, but people confuse free markets as being inherit to capitalism, which it is not.
Capitalism at its core is about ownership, in that those with money own a thing and thus make the decisions. This results in an Oligarchy controlling the market.
Communism in contrast is about collective ownership in that those that produce, own and make the decisions. However in practice, that ownership get usurped by “the state” which basically translates to an oligarchy through control of the market.
This is why I like the term, free market socialism. Ownership should be held by the producers, but the state should not control the market. The role of government in the market should be limited to monopoly prevention.
Ownership by the socialist state is the only way to actually collectivize production and distribution, and thereby end class society and the basis of the state. Ownership at a societal level is the solution, not at the level of individual producers. What you are creating is a form of cooperative-based economy that replicates the larger problems with capitalism, and prevents the transition to classless society run to fulfill the needs of everyone.
The state ownership of production is deliberate, and aimed at improving efficiency and allowing forward planning. One (or a few, if you want competition) large factory is more efficient than a bunch of smaller workshops. State ownership can lead to corruption, as you pointed out, but it is a conscious choice and not happenstance.
I would argue that state facilitation is superior to state control.
A small government that does not interfere with the initiative of individuals and groups.
You don’t need central control and orchistration when you have our level of communication technology. That’s only required when your communication channels are limited.
The state at national level should be limited to providing facilitation, infrastructure, defence and foreign policy. Independent Local governments should provide the bulk of public services.
I trust collective decision making a lot more than central decision making for optimising a system.
State ownership has both advantages and disadvantages; I just wanted to point out that it was a deliberate choice.
What do you do when some regions are poorer than others, or one gets hit by a natural disaster? Again, it isn’t black and white. There are advantages to both centralisation and devolution.
I agree never a one size fits all situation. I do not have much confidence in central planning, since that has the longest track record in failure. Both in governments and in corporations.
A natural disaster would be handled by regional or national disaster response agencies. Much like it is now in western countries.
Regarding wealth or resource imbalance between poorer and richer areas, this is where I think the current status quo is the problem. Since after the industrial revolution, the high productivity of cities has been subsidizing the wealth of the suburbs and rural areas to the significant detriment of overall productivity.
We need to rethink the infrastructure standards outside of cities. Right now the suburb sprawl of single homes with large yards, malls and massive parking lots and roads are utterly unsustainable.
Its are hampering the productive capacity, food quality and security provided by rural land. What this looks like is a lot like older european villages. People live relatively densely surrounded by farmland and pasture. Car ownership is low since you can walk or bike anywhere, or there is a tram or bus to where you need to go. I would also point out that much of this infrastructure was developed and maintained locally with little to no central government.
Once you stop the subsidization and change the role to be something more sustainable, you will find that the wealth and productive density per person will balance according to the inherit environmental factors to a much larger degree.
I also want to highlight is that a lack of central control and planning does not prevent collaboration and coordination from occuring between entities. Our modern communication technology makes this possible to a degree that the founders of socialism and communism could never have anticipated.
Much like industrialization has changed the world order, the communication revolution has done the same. The political and economic sciences are still playing catchup.
Failure in achieving what?
How would there be a national disaster response agency without central planning? Who would fund it? Who would run it?
Are cities actually more productive, or is their higher productivity subsidised by rural areas?
Perhaps, but is that what you want? The resource-poor societies of Central Asia lie between theresource-rich China and Europe. Would a theoretical Eurasian government not want to subsidise people living in these regions, so that they can service the trade routes between China and Europe?
Who mediates disputes, and who enforces their decisions?