• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    3 hours ago

    This is generally wrong, though. Communist countries have dramatically democratized society, it works better at large scale if we are speaking of Marxian Communism because that’s the Marxist reason for Communism to begin with. Competition centralizes, so in the future it must be publicly owned and planned. This is the basis of Scientific Socialism, primitive Communism is not the same as the post-Socialist Communism, which must be large-scale as production increases in complexity.

    Pol Pot wasn’t even a Communist.

      • Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net
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        5 hours ago

        Competition does the exact opposite of centralization. That’s why I can buy most goods from completely different vendors that differ in price and quality.

        Competitions have winners, and in this case it means the competition goes out of business and dies, leaving you with a near monopoly or outright monopoly.

        That power then gets used to

        • lobby (bribe) the government to raise barriers to entry to prevent new competitors
        • buy out new competitors
        • intentionally price everything lower than competitors, at a loss, to kill competitors in a war of attrition that they can’t possibly outlast

        And that’s even assuming there’s any competition at all, which often isn’t the case with certain things like healthcare, internet, electricity, etc.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        6 hours ago

        The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, etc are more democratic than theie previous systems.

        Communism still works, just because the Soviet Union isn’t here doesn’t mean everything is a failure.

        Competition forces centralization and monopolies over time due to increasinly complex production practices that raise the barrier to entry. It’s unavoidable.

        Pol Pot denounced Marxism and focused on an odd agrarian system, and was backed by the CIA.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            3 hours ago

            Read Soviet Democracy, as well as read up on the government structures of the PRC, Vietnam, Laos, etc. They are democratic.

            The PRC is more successful today than the USSR was, and is Socialist. Calling countries in the Global South “shitholes” is wildly chauvanist, along with your unsourced claims about them.

            You didn’t really go against competition causing centralization. Even further than companies, there are joinings of companies under single megacorps that share supply chains and interwork.

            Pol Pot did not “follow Communist ideals,” though. Moreover, if someone makes a clear deviation from Communism and denounces Marxism, why on Earth include it as a detractor other than clear bad-faith?

            Sure, the Cold War was complicated, but the US was never fighting for Communism and neither was Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge never actually read Marx, and mostly declared any Communist sympathies out of aesthetics and geopolitical support than genuine support for Communism, and the US supported them.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            4 hours ago

            Soviet Democracy

            Here’s a well-sourced post on China’s democracy, but really, read their constitution and government structure if you want more.

            Cuba was under a fascist slaver before Socialism, and now has a democracy.

            The PRC is Socialist, and has one of the largest and most rapidly growing economies in the world, I don’t think you need a source for this.

            As for competition and centralization, where do you think the megacorps came from? We are more centralized now than ever before.

            Pol Pot and the CIA, alternatively Blowback lists their sources and they went over it in Season 5.