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Sure, Marxism mostly fails to create good economies. However, the part of Marxism where you drag rich people out of their homes in the middle of the night, shoot them in the back of the head, and toss their still-warm bodies into a ditch is appealing to many people. So what if everything goes to shit afterwards? You still got your revenge on the previous elites, and nothing can ever take that away from you.
The other thing is, command economies are pretty effective if you want to speed-run a society's development from mostly agricultural to mostly industrial and if you want to introduce stuff like public education and women's rights on a mass scale. Many people die in the process, but a few decades later the survivors look back and see that they went from having no prospects except subsistence farming when they were children to now working as factory professionals or bureaucrats.
Can capitalist economies accomplish the same thing? Sure, and probably with less death on average. US-aligned dictatorships murdered over a million civilians during the Cold War, whereas the failures and repressions of communist regimes led to probably an order of magnitude more deaths in communist-controlled countries during the same period. However, this is a rather subtle point and the difference is not so obviously glaring as to immediately cause the average person to throw out Marxism as a clear failure. For most of the history of the competition between capitalism and communism, in most of the world, the average person's choice has not been between modern-style US liberal democracy and communism, it has been between non-communist dictatorship and communist dictatorship.
It's appealing to all people with some absolutely minor editing. Lefties aren't uniquely bloodthirsty and the layer of civilization on people is paper-thin.
What's unique is the acceptance. Someone proposes gassing Jews and they're properly viewed with horror. Someone proposes shooting kulaks and they're given professorships, important positions on NGOs and government advisory committees, and occasionally made Secretary of Labor.
Weren't you the one who was ready to collect commies skulls just yesterday? In self defense assumably, but as they're as evil as Nazis then being given some actual power - are you sure you wouldn't be happy to shoot them just for being evil commies or after something from them will trigger that ancient "it's now you or me" instinct?
There's no "but". Self-defense is different from shooting the kulaks. (And yes, I realize communists and Nazis both will sometimes phrase their murders in the form of self-defense, but at some point you have to get down to the object level and note that they're just lying or at the very best deluded)
So if you're sure that the enemy will kill you if they have an opportunity, will you wait for them to start shooting first?
I understand your point but you're wrong. You're claiming that commies have uniquely wicked METHODS for some reason, and you would never use their wicked methods (killing their enemies), just in self defense. While the methods you would use are exactly the same if you're as convinced in you being right as they are(or just if you're being rational organizing your "self defense", it's very rational to shoot first when you're past some point). It's not the methods which differ you from them, it's the content of your ideology. Methods are the same. You're not more or less bloodthirsty and not more or less "accepting of violence" than commies, look in the mirror.
Not interested in giving you an opening to make the villain speech ("We are alike, you and I"...)
I'm not a leftie, but I'm self aware enough and also old enough to recognise the Hitler/Stalin/Mao in me, during the right circumstances. But I'm glad you're uniquely good individual, without any dark sides. And I'm sure you'll remain good and just no matter what. And massacre millions purely in self defense.
Knock it off. You're not going to talk conflict theorists out of being conflict theorists, and at this point you are just trying to provoke a continued argument.
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What do you mean by speed run? China tried all this and floundered hopelessly. It wasn't until they liberalized that they started to industrialize. Russia was already quite heavily industrialized before the revolution and it's not clear that central planning helped at all in the process. Other more liberalized countries like Germany were and continued to be more industrialized.
Countries can develop under central planning sure. The question is does it do better than the alternative and every natural experiment we have shows it doesn't. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore are richer than China. South Korea richer than North Korea. West Germany even now is richer than East Germany.
Technological growth made everyone better off and assigning this boon to the totalitarian state that happened to take power while the rising tide lifted all boats is an easy mistake to make, but a mistake all the same.
This is not good comparison, esp. the latter two. These cities are population sinks, compare them say, to Shanghai, low TFR higher GDP per capita, in constrast to more inland regions in mainland China.
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Granting that this is true, Park Chung Hee was a much better ruler than Kim Il Sung. Pinochet was a much better ruler than Allende. Etc, etc.
Both killed many people but yeah, I imagine that Kim Il Sung probably killed an order of magnitude more people.
Not sure about this. I have never heard of Allende being responsible for killing anyone, although being a politician he probably was. Pinochet, on the other hand, clearly was responsible for killing many people.
In large part this is because Allende was overthrown before he could transition to actual communism. So perhaps my statement should have been "a much better ruler than Allende would have been".
Allende is set to opposed the threat of a good example. But now Pinochet exists as an example of a bad capitalist.
I have a friend from Chile who is absolutely opposed to the woke (and to a somewhat lesser degree the broader left) but wants to vomit when you bring up Pinochet. His family personally suffered.
I'm going to take a page out of the tankie playbook and say that if your friend's family suffered, it must mean they were commie bastards who deserved it.
What is this comment supposed to achieve? Are you being ironic? Are you literally saying someone whose family personally suffered deserved it? Speak plainly and less inflammatorily.
You just modded me for my amount of empathy towards females, remember that? It's the same thing. I'm sick and tired of being forced to extend my hand towards people who want to see me killed. That guy's dead family would have cheered and hollered watching me whimpering before my execution by their preferred government, why the fuck do I have to be a bigger man?
I don't care how much empathy you do or don't have for anyone, or whether or not you're a "bigger man." But this is not the place for posting low effort comments that do nothing but express your vitriolic rage.
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Cycle of violence my friend. I'm going to assume with a comment like that that your family ought to be Roman-offed.
I would be inconsolable if my family were executed, but only because they're my family. I'm just a weak human and not a flawless embodiment of righteous political judgement.
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Indeed. So practicing Marxists should be treated approximately similarly to those practicing Nazism, and those merely preaching it should be considered evil by the mere fact of doing so
I wonder what "practicing" Marxists means here. Most of them are just people with an opinion.
Funny how you didn't wonder what "practicing" means in relation to Nazis.
I know it's hilarious right. But yes that too, sure.
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