I had a journey
Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)
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Reading about FOSS philosophy, degoogling, becoming against corporations, and now a full-blown woke communist (like Linus Torvalds)
Doesn't read like he's an actual communist, more insulting people (rightly so) that would call liberals communists.
Nvm
er... did torvalds just say trans rights? based alert
God I wish that were true but there are a LOT of people (well, conservatives) who are vehemently against wider society allowing cross dressing or medical transition. It's not 90% :(
It's strange to me that any of the things he said is controversial.
I don't think it's that controversial unless you're hardcore conservative. Realistically he just laid out the view of most of the Libertarian party. Nothing he said denotes woke or communist except for the part or him claiming to be one. I'd like to see the full context, because that woke communist comment probably wasn't directed at Linus’ views
The communist part reads as sarcasm because he was accused of being one
Just when I thought I couldn't admire him more...
Common sense on the internet in this economy 😮
Where do I sign up for my Atheist card?
I'm definitely woke af. And proud of it.
I have come to think that when profits are at odds with health, happiness, the good of society and humanity, then either a non profit foundation needs to be running it or it needs to be in the hands of the government—but a much less corrupt one. And I believe oligopolies need to be broken up and anti trust laws greatly expanded and enforced. Then we can deal with the oligopoly / plutocracy. We set a maximum wage (including all earnings) and tax 100% above that. Penalties for regulatory breaches include jail time. For corporations. With corporations reigned in, oligopolies and oligarchies crumbled, we can prevent regulatory capture and corruption. Campaign finance is abolished and it is paid for out of public funds. We abolish first past the post voting in favor of scientifically determined better alternatives to ensure voters actually have a variety of choices.
Idk wtf that makes me except maybe a ranting lunatic lol
As a full fledged Ancapper, I respect your opinion
In German we call it "Links Grün vesifft"
Aber die Grüneeeeeeeeennnnnn!!!!!
I personally think communism especially Marxism sounds really good on paper. The problem is that just about every time it has been attempted things didn't really seem to work like they are supposed to.
Its like every state that attempts communism just ends up being a perpetual Vanguard state, and it ends up being authoritarian and terrible.
I really think there are several good ideas in Marx theories, but the actual implementation of those theories needs some work to figure out how they should be incorporated without being corrupted and overtaken by tyrants.
Capitalism didn't appear over night. It took several attempts and iterations to get it anywhere near what it is today. Most modern theories on the implementation of Marxism focus less on centralized government authority and more on democracy in the work place, and eliminating 3rd party shareholders' control. Much of the struggle with implementation of this, is that the existing financial structures aren't set up to handle this type of thing well.
What we have today isn't really even capitalism anymore. It is becoming something else. We don't have free markets, for example, because large corporate players are not allowed to fail. Under a central banking system, the state can simply print money to fund its corporate protectorates while artificially suppressing interest rates to avoid paying any interest on the debt. And then we use tariffs and policy to pick and choose winners, suppressing competition. This is about as far from capitalism as one can imagine.
Can you point me to a time when capitalism did happen? Where governments and outside forces weren't picking winners and losers in the market? In such a time what was the plight of the common worker? Did we see overwork, workplace safety, and child labor issues?
Third wave communism doesn't seek to abandon the "free market" (which is free within bounds), it instead favors democracy in the workplace. Where all members of the organization are employee-owners including ceos and middle management and the "Board" is dissolved into either a representative or direct democracy made up of employee-owners. In this way one increases the incentives for each individual to perform and see the company perform well. This also mitigates much income inequality by allowing the workers a say in the compensation of middle and upper management.
Boy, that's the understatement of the century. Not only did it not work, it often results in mass murder and the ushering in of a totalitarian regime.
That's why no country has achieved communism they are all authoritarian!
You're right. Communism is like the greatest social form a society can possibly achieve. The Problem is, that humans are dumb and will always try to get the best out of it for themselves so the concept of communism is ruined by those people. It maybe is practicable in small "society's" (your family as example) but fails in big societies like states.
Yes, Communism fails to acknowledge human psychology and will therefore never work. People are individuals with self interests. This can never be controlled (without violence) by a socialist/communist society. The good news is you only need selfishness in a free market society. In order for people to get their needs met they need to offer value. Value exchange means all people are better off (on average).
Context for those who are baffled (I was)
https://news.itsfoss.com/linus-torvalds-woke-communists/
No Linus hasn't grabbed a red rag and isn't off to foment revolution
I liked the take by the utterly clueless Polish guy in the comment. I think his complete lack of understanding of any context is quite typical of online political conversation, especially when semantics come into play.
Also Linus did call for "Total world domination" (I have the tshirt).
Yes of course, who doesn't remember how woke Lenin created a woke revolution based on woke teachings of woke Marx and even woker Engels.
Guy's Finnish. The chances of him being actually communist are pretty much zero.
This might be a dumb question: what do you mean? I know very little about Finland, so I'm just genuinely curious. Are the Finns in particular well-known for being anti-communist or is it more like a geopolitical thing since they share a border with Russia?
I don't know where this idea that all Finns are anti-communist comes from. Finland had one of the strongest communist movements in Western Europe during the cold war. At the height of their popularity about one in four Finns voted for communists in elections. Card carrying communists sat as ministers in multiple cabinets, up to the early 1980s. Like many young people of his generation, Linus Torvalds' father was a member of the Communist Party of Finland in the 1970s. And all this happened after Finland had fought against the Soviet Union in the 2nd world war.
Geopolitical yeah
Minor historical event called the Winter War
Fair enough, I suppose. Sometimes it's hard to tease out cause & effect with things like this (e.g.: the relationships between Germany/France, U.S./Japan, Canada/U.K.). Not that I mind a simple & straightforward bloody historical hate-boner every once in a while.
His father was into the communist party
The Linux to trans anarchocommunist catgirl pipeline is very real. The moment you move to Arch it's already over.
I'm feeling called out
I just installed pop!_os am I safe?
that's how I started. nobody's safe.
Sorry, I don't speak nyah
Slippery slope my friend!
Oh and don't forget the autistic-to-linuxer pipeline
I think I could have backed off after moving to Arch. The point of no return was Rust
As someone who recently fell in love with EndeavorOS I don't wanna fall down the cat girl pipeline....
It's to late brother. It's to late.
uWu
It didn't happen to me despite using Linux for 8 years. I guess I am a Windows user in disguise.
:3 ^.^
Well, I'm probably fucked then. I even have Arch on my gaming PC with KDE and Arch on my school laptop with GNOME(Gnome for Laptops is insanely cool)
I skipped straight to Gentoo.
Catgirls hate this simple trick!
Good thing I'm never going to arch then, lol.
I'm happy with Manjaro.
rant:
I have been using Linux since 2006, a lefty and against the super-rich and big corporations since I remember (to the point of avoiding their products like the plague), also never having understood or accepted gender roles and other stupid traditional concepts, yet never turned into a communist 🤷
It baffles me that so many people think that respecting gender equality, understanding the evil in big corporations and avoiding them, valuing community and being tolerant (except for intolerance) and against discrimination somehow equals communism... I say this because I've been called a communist by many people who know me, while I have always rejected it explicitly!
/rant
What economic model do you believe in?
I can't really say I believe in a specific model, but to my knowledge, and for the current version of our world, welfare states seem to be doing the least worse currently. But really, I think our world is kinda too fucked up right now to be able to have any good social-economic system (in terms of maximum equality and minimum suffering, I guess.)
Ideally, I'd prefer no state, only local communities managing themselves (something like city states, maybe?) and their relations to other communities... but I know it's just a dream, at least for the foreseeable future, considering the current realities and the ass-people in power. Because that would need many really peaceful, non-greedy and non-selfish people, which... well, never mind.
P.s. Sorry for the pessimism, and I might be wrong of course, which I really hope I am.
You're describing communalism, if you're interested.
Thanks. Maybe, kind of. My knowledge on the topic is limited, but I think communalism (or some version of it) could involve some form of loyalty to one's ethnic group or community, which absolutely disagree with.
Social responsibility: Yes. But loyalty, especially towards something ultimately meaningless such as ethnicity: No.
My values are respecting individual choices, rights and well-being of others (which also entails some responsibility).
I completely agree. However, as I understand, the tradition as it stems from Murray Bookchin explicitly condemns this arbitrary categorisation.
Your describing a Soviet you filthy commie.
But for real what your describing is communism as marx originally thought of it. The one example marx gave as a model for what communism would be was the Paris commune which adheres to a lot of what you said. Most leftist agree that that's the end goal it's just a matter of how to get there. Lenin originally pitched the Soviet Union as just that, a bunch of local councils(soviets) freely cooperating and making there own rules. He saw how the Paris commune's openness and military indecisiveness led to it being brutally suppressed though and wanted an interim top down dictatorship and rapid brutal industrialization to handle this threat. The threat never went away though, first with the Nazis almost annihilating them then the u.s. pointing nukes at them, so neither did the dictatorship.
Their end goal was still avowedly the same though, and communism, to me at least, is about that goal. Their are a bunch of different theoretical paths to it, and there's tonnes of infighting as to which ones the best, but all communists agree that the commune/Soviet/city state should have all the power.
Thanks for the explanation.
The problem is exactly the "how", as you described. And personally, I don't really have any idea, since all the possible ways seem to involve somehow contradicting that goal "temporarily" (by using violence, limiting individual liberties, etc.), which I don't like. I think maybe over time, (a very long time, perhaps?) the way of thinking of human societies will slowly (and through a painful process) shift to that direction (and maybe not! who knows!).
Either way, life is painful and world is cruel.
Reformism is the term for a path to socialism without the use of violence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformism
Lenin did not seize absolute power out of some lofty ideal of protecting the workers. He was very motivated about reclaiming the Russian Empire and murdering any workers or separatists that were in his way. Even contemporary communists like Rosa Luxembourg recognized that. Lenin and Stalin had over 20 years to dismantle the state before the Nazis became a threat. Not to mention, the original plan was to ally with the Nazis! The leaders never had any interest in helping workers.
On your first point you should read the question of nationalities which Lenin wrote shortly before his death. He clearly wanted to take down the tsarist apparatus after all the existential threats to the Soviet Union were gone.
Where did Luxembourg say Lenin was trying to recreate the tsarist empire? She was critical of the Bolsheviks authoritarianism but If anything she was also critical of the Bolsheviks limited allowance for nationalism and would've suppressed nationalism further, she was a strict internationalist.
If they did dismantle the state apparatus before the Nazis came what do you think would happen? The Soviet Union was barely able to turn the tide of the war with a united front and 20 years of intense, brutal industrialization. If they had dismantled the state and Russia was just a bunch of rural locally run villages in a loose confederation in 1939 the Nazis would've steamrolled over them and genocided the population.
Lenin is not the first leader to whitewash imperialism.
That's pretty similar to the social democratic system that they had in Sweden before the 90s. Many critical services were government agencies, such as the railroad, the phone network, and the pharmacies. Health care and rental housing were handled by the municipality or the county.
And they got the idea from URSS
I'm sure that it could be argued that Sweden had Soviet influence, there was definitely a soviet-backed communist party in Sweden from 1917 until 1977.
But at the same time, Swedish Social Democracy is a completely separate ideology from Soviet Communism, and the parties that implemented these "folkhemmet" policies were 100% hostile to the Soviet Union and any Soviet influence. Sweden has never had any system of communism, nor any USSR-friendly prime ministers or ministers.
Specifically, Per Albin Hansson's "the people's home" ideology that he advocated for as prime minister was a reformist, anti-marxist form of social liberalism.
I would say you are somewhere between arnachism and socialism with that view but I am no expert ether!
Those two have big overlaps. "Libertarian socialism" used to be another term for anarchism.
Id recommend you reading "socialism: utopian and scientific" by Engels. Because to me you sound exactly like the utopian socialist of the past.
Sounds a lot like me. That's not communism, that's just being a decent person. One that respects others and just wants everyone to live a good life without being the target of hate and harassment.
That's overlapping with communism.
Linus Torvalds is a "full-blown woke communist"? Citation needed.
I have been a FOSS enthusiast since my preteen or early teenage years (mid-to-late 2000s), yet I am not in any sense a communist.
"full-blown woke communist" is US-speak for "Scandinavian socialist"
The term you want is social democrat, which isn't socialism but hey, it tries to like, stop people starving to death on the street, if only because it looks ugly.
Nah literally anyone who advocates for basic human rights is a "full blown woke communist".
Scandinavian corporatist-social-democrat*
Did you know the Scandanavian countries have more economic freedom than the USA! Its their saving grace. They also have many private roads. The early 20th c saw capitalist Nordic countries become very wealthy and store up sovereign funds. These funds were than blown dry in the later half of the century as they became more socialist. They have now abandoned many socialist policies and again adopted freedom. They do however still have high taxation.
His dad was a straight up member of the Finnish Communist Party. He's still alive, and is even a member of the European Parliament, but seems more liberal/centrist these days.
Linus himself seems to be pretty mum on politics.
To me it always seemed like Linus Torvalds is mostly a pragmatist.
Richard M Stallman on the other hand...
I think the dates are more relevant than the software. COVID pandemic was probably more impactful here than Linux.
He made a comment sarcastically and replied to an accusation labeling himself as such
sudo apt-get install anarchismhttps://packages.debian.org/stable/doc/anarchism
I now love Debian more than I previously thought possible.
brb installing Debian on all my hardware.
edit: there's a
fortune-anarchismtoo, amazing.AUR package: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/anarchism
(the pkgbuild is literally just extracting the deb and archiving it again to an arch package lol)
ITT: people who have no idea what communism is
...I just didn't want windows advertising to me.
But that is sort of why it's the first step. You were using Windows and were bothered with ads. So you may have looked into an alternative you heard about called Linux. You are new to Linux and maybe ask some questions on forums and interact with people from all over the world that are taking time out of their day to help you, which gives you a sense of community. Then you learn that Linux is licensed as Open Source Software, and that people are working together to create something for the benefit of people, not for profits. Then you start to wonder, what else in my life that bothers me is a result of profit motivation?
You mean the picture is a windows ad ? [edit] typo
Fine, but dont defend tyranical regimes. They are bad no mather who they say they read. They could could claim to be following the teachings of fucking Mr Roggers but if they have concentration camps then thats not utopic or very humanitarian in my opinion, specially if ther is some mad dictator in power with everything no matter how manny extra steps are in between.
On Lemmy? Shock
https://moneyinc.com/linus-torvalds-net-worth/
Well, that's one definition of being communist, I suppose. Myself, I think that it's fairly safe to say that Torvalds is okay with private ownership of industry.
People may have read this and got too excited. He just believes in socially left policy. He's probably not a communist.
I don't know about his political views, but I think Linus deserves every last penny he got from Red Hat.
I'm no communist, but your argument is flawed.
Linus is not representative of the Linux community and I think the famous Stallman rant regarding GNU/Linux is actually relevant here.
The free software movement is certainly pretty left leaning, though I wouldn't call them communist.
Literally same, even the years match up lol
Me too
Fuck communist statist, foss is pure anarchism.
My
brother in ChristComrade in the revolution, Communism is a stateless, moneyless, classless society. Whatever self-proclaimed "Statist Communists" thare are, are no-more Communist than the National "Socialists" who sent our kind to the death camps.The end stage of the dialectic is that, yes. But that's doesn't just appear from nothing. Read state and Revolution or What is to be done.
Yea I think that's kinda their point
Personally while I think all states should be abolished and all resources should be shared on a global scale, I also think that the company that serves my house with Internet should be forced to compete so that we (the people in my city) can get the benefits of capitalism: improved prices and service.
I also believe that the latter is actually a step towards the former - though it's just a guess.
Anarchism does not necessarily exclude Communism! :)
Good Explanations: https://www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/index.html for those interested
If only communism could function under voluntarism.
FLOSS is Voluntaryism - it only requires voluntary participation.
FOSS is Ricks group from The Walking Dead
Disagree. If FOSS were an anarchism what would be the point of FOSS lincences of which some are very long legal documents? Also corporations would just take your code, say its theirs and tell you to go fuck yourself.
Foss licenses are copyleft, they bar individuals from enclosing the commons built by the collective for profit. Anarchism isn’t just letting people do whatever they want. Anarchism means against hierarchy. Having rules that prevent unjustified hierarchies from forming is entirely with in the bounds of anarchism. Including rules that prevent using copyright as a coercive hierarchy.
All heirarchies are unjustified.
I'd look at foss licenses more as tools of defence against (and within) the current system/context than "rules" that serve to enforce some kind of anti-capitalist "heirarchy".
Honest question: "Without any authority who gets to enforce the rules?". Everyone, as they see fit it seems. What makes "your" hierarchy better than "my" hierarchy?
Everyone sort of enforces the rules as they see fit now. The difference is there is an expectation to not resist when someone is abusing their power because they are an authority figure. Under anarchism, it is your peers holding each other accountable, and your right to question actions against you is accepted.
I look at it the other way. In a free and prosperous armed society where common sense rules are respected and insisted upon by the majority who would be stupid enough to break the rules? Let us look at it some other ways. Ebay is one of the largest merchant structures in the world. It is not an authority, but has for decades now used in-house arbitration for disputes. Detroit has a private 'police force'. It is not an authority. It is a private defence org that also runs a volunteer community protection unit that uses psychology as its main policing tool. Historically we had Panarchy in Ireland. People regardless of territory could voluntarily join a tuath. It would offer legal services. If unsatisfactory the client could join another tuath. Even today way much more is spent on private security than on policing. Maratine law orignally ran on banishment. Did not pay your contract or larder bill. You could no longer dock your ship or be served at a tavern etc. Before the state co-opted the law, there was Common Law! Law does not require authority.
Copyleft is NOT against profit! Go read Stallman! Anarchy mean 'No Rulers' not no hierarchy. Call yourself an Anorderist otherwise! Hierarchy is just a form of structure. Some people have management and coordination skills. Others specialise in an area that fits into a greater project. There is nothing wrong in a voluntary structure system. It is only the initiation of force upon structure (see. Government) or otherwise that is a problem.
Tell me you don't understand anarchism without telling me you don't understand anarchism.
Communism is when government does something. Anarchism is when you do fuck all to protect yourself.
Government is when an involuntary institution has a mafia protection racket. They show up after a crime and write a report. Anarchism is when you take responsibility for your own protection.
How so?
It seeks to undermind the corrupt copywrite systems and promotes decenteralizrd collaberation and cooperation.
Eh, depends on the project
I too just turned into a Marxist after finding out about Linux and software freedom in 2020 lol
I think there might be more than a handful of us. Welcome, comrade.
🫡
What? These things are not related to each other by a good margin. In fact, since the FOSS is completely orderless, it goes against communism; which requires some sort of order just to be able to function. But either way, the parallel is not there or questionable at best, not to mention irrelevant.
Can we NOT drag useless politics into FOSS?
Wow. Im pretty centerist on capitalism and I have been using linux since about 2000 or so.
https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/resize/936f0e352f49bb1299376443ae9ecd6903cb6790/2015/01/26/bf82ae8b-446c-472b-8fd9-037661d25a68/microsoft-open-source-communist.jpg?auto=webp&width=768
(/s in case it wasn't clear)
I still find it funny that Steve Ballmer called Linux communism lmao
In my view Torvalds is more of a pragmatic stoicist.
I feel called out.
I'm not quite there yet but im definitly at the second to last block
Shit this is too accurate
Use the right tool for the job, I say.
I made a decent chunk of change with capitalism. I have a modest house and am well positioned for a middle-class retirement.
Now I work for the government in a field for which I find the capitalist options wanting.
I give away my programming guides for free online with no ads, but sell paper copies of the books for profit.
Could I make more money by charging for the online versions? Sure. But some things are worth more than money.
The quest for money doesn't ruin everything, but it sure ruins a lot of things.
Bell Labs of yore would be my dream company to work for.
What's your website?
https://beej.us/guide/
🤗 love your articles
Just began using Linux, was already Marxist
Yeah, I love the FOSS philosophy and I would be a communist if I didn't know that in my country and in every other country where communism is/was, it became a dictatorship doing reallly horrible things. I simply don't have the trust in people to believe communism is possible without violation of human rights. It's sad.
There is not a single country that has achieved communism.
Sorry then, I should have written In every other country ruled by communists saying they are building communism, banning every other political party then the communist one, killing people in the name of communism. I see their unability to achieve communism even when they've had full control over country for decades as a proof of that it's not really possible.
It is incorrect to say that there was/is communism in the country. There are only countries that trying/tried building communism.
Having a single party is the one of several approaches. But the only one that survived. I think the idea is that you don't need other parties if you building communism (like why do you need any liberal party driven by rich people?). And It's not like regular people can't join this party (unlike now when only rich people can be in politics).
I’m not saying that it’s possible, but I wouldn’t say that it’s impossible given a certain level of technology.
Then what is it? A teapot in the sky?
If it's a viable plan which can be realized, then how to achieve it, without killing people and creating a dictatorship? Is it possible?
I might be wrong, but it seems to me that any effort to establish communism will eventually fail with a lot paid in vain, and many lives lost, as has happened so far.
If that viable plan needs time to be accepted more widely, then maybe we should simply wait and try to be decent people in the meantime, instead of trying now to establish a "temporary" dictatorship actively as a way of "transition". And if the plan can be acted upon right now, then again the question is how (without resorting to violence and tyranny, of course). That question remains open to me. And it's a big one.
In such countries there was/is socialism. They only tried/trying to build communism. This is a common misconception.
I don't know. But I doubt that the state will give up its powers without any fight.
My understanding is that these days people treat it more like an ideal to strive toward under current democratic systems. For instance, how would you feel about UBI being introduced under your current system of governance?
Red Hat UBI? It's awesome
*JK, but Red Hat UBI really Awesome!
Looks like you have a lot to learn
Thanks for your valuable input, you opened my eyes.
Communism = fascism. We have plenty of historical data to support that.
No. They are not equal and neither same. If you understand Italian I suggest you to search for Prof. Barbero videos on the topic. They are quite better than anything I'll be able to convey.
Fascism:
It's an authoritarian dictatorship happened between 1914 and 1945 in Italy. The fascist regime and ideology was strictly based on Mussolini's figure, people marched in straight lines down the streets, everyone wearing the same uniforms and Italy was a great imperialist nation (lol jk it wasn't but they quite believed it). Fascism and the fascist party stopped existing after partisans overthrew the regime. Fascism is a 20 years long dictatorship. After that there were some regimes around the world that were inspired by Mussolini such as the current ruling party Italy Fratelli d'Italia, Marine le Pen's party in France, those shitty AFD in Germany, orban's Regime, franco in Spain etc etc. They are called neofascists, because Fascism was a 20 years long regime happened in Italy between 1914 and 1945.
Communism:
Communism is a model of governace that's never been achieved in human history, as someone above said it's about classless, stateless, governance models. It's been around for like 200 years (the Communist Party Manifesto is from 1848), and in every country of the world there is/ has been a Communist Party and as we know they were always persecuted for being communist, stopped from going to the government and stopped from bulding a classless society when they managed to get to govern. Just see what the USA did in the last 50/60 years in every country that risked a communist government: Chile and latin America in general, Italy and so on an so forth.
Fascism =/= communism, and if you say the contrary you just don't know how they work.
What is this lunacy?
Like third grade history I believe
I might be a little confused here... Are you calling yourself a fascist?
In the absence of an answer I would just like to remind you that dbzer0 seems to not be the place for you. Maybe fascists cannot read very well, but on the signup screen it says explicitly:
I do not think you should feel very welcome here at all. Maybe just leave Lemmy altogether?
Sorry, is this a reply on my comment?
No, the comment I replied to was removed. See my message for context.
Nah, only kidding. I'm a national socialist, much cooler 😎
Looked through your comments and seems you are just not very bright. Funny you play that nationalist shit while at the same time being a disgrace to your own nation.
Oh no I made a jobless commie cry
I live in the central europe and I have plenty of historical data about every country that was part of the Soviet Union being authoritarian at the same time. You probably couldn't imagine what was happening here. I don't have so much knowledge about the rest of the world, but I think I heard about some genocide and concentration camps in china recently...
I was born in USSR.
Sorry, I read your comment wrong and for some reason thought the = is !=.
Eric Raymond, Communism and Free Software Eric Raymond, Communism and Free Software
Just wait for the next stage as a libertarian socialist, without a leading communist party, because we can take care of us ourselves - it's usually called anarchy (which doesn't mean no social norms, just self-organisation without leadership)
So many kiddos arguing ridiculous politics here.
Welcome comrade
🫡
relatable
Ironic as I went the other way. I was a Communist when I got into FOSS and as I got older I realized I could never defend the historical record of Communism.
I think we may be the same person.
it be a slippery slope
I don't really see the link to communism though I can see the parallels to social democracy.
Private ownership of computer code should lead us to a hellscape where all code is owned by a handful of huge companies and wealthy elites. But instead of doing away with private ownership and making all code public domain we added regulation in the form of free and open source licensing that democratized private ownership and made it serve our community. Perhaps that is the real lesson, not communism.
Isn't that what communism is? In an ELI5 level?
You don't know what communism is.
In pointing out one's deficiencies, you should help them fill in those gaps. Otherwise, you're just being an asshole.
Explain what communism is. Comprehensive education in communism is not part of many places' standard curriculum
Yes! I like you :)
Thank you for the useless opinion vomit
Its only useless if you are incapable of learning.
More vapid nonsense
Say something, or don't bother hitting keys
I know, it's cringe af.
This meme shows completely my journey. I became a FOSS advocate in 2020 after realized that all sites that I visited wanted my "cookies". I started to questioning myself about and after some research I became a disciple of Richard Stallman and a Marxist-Leninist.
So Steve Ballmer was right all along
Developers, developers?
~ Steve "Developers Developers Developers" Balmer
I think there is something fundamental about the pull of investigating, understanding, and reading that leads to so much crossover between the two.
I believe you are not alone. I have the exact same journey. Started installing Ubuntu 20.04 on a mid-2011 iMac. Now, I consider myself as a near-libertarian communist, I spend my free time reading books on communist theory.
For me, it was around 2015ish when I first installed Linux after learning about it from someone that was detasselling in a corn field with me. Then around 2017-2020ish, I eventually became radicalized (2017 is when net neutrality was killed, even though around 80% of Americans supported it, which made me question our government and economy).
Isn't that what communism is? In an ELI5 level?
I am not sure if you meant to reply to the other person's comment or refer to them in mine, but I think this video does a pretty good job at explaining socialism/communism to people wanting to understand it: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=fpKsygbNLT4
I'll try to give my own explanations later.
Yeah sorry. I have replied to the wrong comment. Thanks for the video link BTW.
Second Thought is so good!
But is socialism really the same as communism?
Socialism is the name for the economy system where the working class rule the means of production.
Socialism isn't communism-lite. It's more of an umbrella anti-capitalist term.
I honestly don't even know what a Marxist is.
Neither do the anti-marxists.
Karl Marx was a philosopher and economist. He wanted to understand class relations and social conflict, so he developed theories to explain why things are the way they are. A Marxist uses Marx's theories to understand why the world is the way it is.
Marx had a lot of theories, such as historical materialism - that all history was primarily motivated by socio-economic forces, not supernatural forces or grand conspiracy. Marx wrote that the dominate socio-economic system running the world in his time was capitalism/imperialism which fueled capital accumulation through exploitation and alienation, and used technology to further this process with imperialist wars for resources etc... He also focused on class struggle between those with the most resources, and those with the fewest resources - the bourgeoisie (capitalists) vs. the proletariat (workers/peasants).
Marx went further than trying to explain why the world is the way it is, he also theorized on how humanity could replace the dominate socio-economic system, and what a non-exploitative non-alienating socio-economic system might look like. "Marxist" refers to anyone who believes Marx's theories are valid and uses them to understand the way things are.
Marxism is the classical version of communism developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As opposed to later ideologies such as Marxism-Leninism and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Marxism isn't some magical dogma, it's a set of tools for analyzing the world and a vision of a better future that came from the use of these tools and the analysis they gave. Marxism-Leninism and MLM are both to an extent a use of these tools to further analyzing the world.
Without Lenin we wouldn't have a good analysis of Imperialism and methods for theory application to the real world. Ala vanguard party and all that.
you can read about that here if you've got a few minutes to spare
The people who tried to explain it to you, cant even it explain it themselves lol
Yeah, I'm more confused than I was before.
https://www.marxists.org/subject/students/index.htm
Yes, I agree, I am at stage 3 and stage 4 looks more enticing every single damn day.
Follow the white rabbit: https://lemmy.world/post/5739196
Read lenin, not yannis.
Guess we're just mask off Tankies on Lemmy huh?
Am i supposed to feel ashamed? 😂
Absolutely
Okay McCarthy
Couldn't care less about regular communists. Tankies on the other hand...
McCarthyism was literally targetting communists you'd accuse of being tankies.
You don't have to be wrong on the internet. You can just look things up.
So it wasn't just the Tankies, it was all communist since communism demands a stateless society.
I didn't say it was just "tankies" but you previously said
After I called you a McCarthyist.
You know, you don't have to fail at doing gotchas, you can just recognize you're an anti-communist like McCarthy and stop.
I thought Tankie meant Stalinist not just Leninist.
Basically those "communist" who they should be in charge of the "transitional" period into a stateless society.
There really isn't anyone who is a stalinist, Stalin had some important theoretical contributions but not enough to have a branch of thought, he followed lenin's ideas pretty much.
In my experience I've noticed Linux tends to (disproportionately) attract both libertarians and socialists/communists. I feel like I run into more of both within the Linux community than I do in other communities.
I started using Linux because I couldn't force myself to use Windows 8. Up to that point I used whatever version of Windows came right before the graphical interface but 8 was too awful so I started playing with mint and never went back..
I got off the capitalism train in the middle of that but that was only because I decided to major in business and when I saw how the sausage was made I jumped ship but I didn't know anything about socialism or communism or marxism or whatever you want to call it. I was so not into politics or economics that I literally had to search the Internet and ask people on social media what was an alternative to the crap I was reading for my classes.. And then I went down that rabbit hole. If was enlightening. I learned a lot.
Also... for people who think college is Marxist indoctrination...Marx was brought up for one paragraph in one book at the very very end of my 4 years. But by that point I already knew who he was just from the rabbit hole I went down when I was curious for some alternative to what I was being taught.
For me it was more of a: went from centrist to we need better regulations but we must ensure competition.
Honestly I definitely credit the FOSS community as a whole for helping me become anti-corporate and eventually leftist, and helping me escape religion.
I first installed Linux in middle school, 15 years ago. I began appreciating other people wanting to share something for the benefit of others, with nothing in return (and no religion attached).
And from there it was a slow burn of becoming more and more leftist. I went vegan 5 years ago, and since then really started embracing leftism more.
I only recently though noticed the link between FOSS and leftism, but in hindsight it's so obvious.
Am I doing it wrong because I've use Ubuntu (12 years) and Kali Linux (8 years) and... I'm still not a marxist?
Skill issue
sorted by controversial and found this post. why? this is amazing
Linux and open source in general completely blow apart capitalist arguments that profit motive is necessary for innovation and technological advancement. Open source ecosystem primarily run by volunteers has produces some of the most interesting and innovative technologies that we've seen. The reality is that people make interesting things because they're curious and they enjoy making stuff. Pretty much nobody makes anything interesting with profit being the primary motive.
I disagree somewhat.
A lot of high tech development comes with a greed motive, e.g. IPO, or getting bought out by a large company seeking to enter the space, e.g. Google buying Android, or Facebook buying Instagram and Oculus.
And conversely, a lot of open source software are copies of commercially successful products, albeit they only become widely adopted after the originals have entered the enshittified phase of their life.
Is there a Lemmy without Reddit? Is there a Mastodon without Twitter? Is there LibreOffice without Microsoft Office and decades of commercial word processors and spreadsheets before that? Or OpenOffice becoming enshittified for that matter? Is there qBittorrent without uTorrent enshittified? Is there postgreSQL without IBM's DB2?
The exception that I can see is social media and networked services that require active network and server resources, like Facebook YouTube, or even Dropbox and Evernote.
Okay, The WELL is still around and is arguably the granddaddy of all online services, and has avoided enshittification, but it isn't really open source.
The idea that these things wouldn't exist without commercial analogs is silly. You do realize that things like BBS boards and IRC existed long before commercial social media platforms right? In fact, we might've seen things like social media evolve in completely different directions if not for commercial platforms setting standards based on attracting clicks, and monetizing users.
I used linux for about the same time and i still think communsim is for genocide deniers
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I am a full blown capitalist, and I despise google and the entire online ad industry and its tracking, I'd say all of my apps (except for games) are foss or atleast somewhat open source
This is the Linux content I was looking for. So relevant and insightful to Linux itself. Like, wow, this is so much better and so much less insufferable than Reddit’s userbase, amirite, guys? It’s so refreshing seeing the same ideology leaking into literally every community, the diversity is so nice to see, like, wow, yes.
Interesting because libertarians are for FOSS as they are against IP. (It is not real property). Libertarians also like to degoogle as they like privacy. Libertarians are against corporations as they are not a free market creation.
Well, there are Libertarians and libertarians. From your username I gather you're a Libertarian and not just a GOP moron libertarian who might hate corporations but will defend their "right" not to be regulated, while receiving government subsidies.
(American) Libertarianism was literally created by Milton Freedman under contract and for the benefit of oil corporations. Claiming libertarians are against corporations is the dumbest fucking take.
https://www.alternet.org/2013/09/true-history-libertarianism-america-phony-ideology-promote-corporate-agenda/
They couldn't come up with an original thought to save their lives, even the name itself was stolen from French (libertaire) anarchism which had to hide it's original name after publication bans.
Re: your link Some libertarians are practical. If governments have changed the playing field, widened the posts for example, you do not only aim at the original legitimate space. You are at a disadvantage and will loose. You adjust to the game and try to change it. So, allegedly, FEE took money from big businesses. So what? This is not an endorsement of the CORPORATION! If they took tax extorted it would be a red flag. Freedman - guilty of what? Removing rent controls! Manipulation, coercion of a market! nb Libertarians follow Austrian economics BTW.
Nice story, but Libertarians want liberty - huh! Liberty is the absence of coercion. Corporations are a forced manipulation, intrusion & coercion upon a free market. They have government granted limited liability, send lobbyists to manipulate rules in their favour and create regulatory capture to lock out smaller competitors. Competition is part of a free market - which libertarians want! Facts! Libertarianism was the original American ideal known as Liberalism, now Classical Liberalism. In the modern era you are better off referencing Rothbard than Freedman.
I have trouble imagining ever being proud of being a communist. It's right up there with all the bad things in society.
Changing your entire personality and opinions like that is a giant red flag.
You do know Capitalism was making the slave trade unfeasable. Technology is superior at mass production. It increasingly made sense to invest in machinery etc. The most skilled slaves were eventually given free reign and only had to pay a fee to their master. White nations and their Capitalist technology ended slavery - at least in the Western world.
dont get too attached to that computer where you installed it, under communism is no longer yours.
Uh, I have been using Linux for 7 years and I'm pretty conservative. Don't associate Linux with corrupt communist ideals
The multi millionaire linus torvalds is a communist?
Hahaha..
I don't think you actually know what communism is.
Please explain communism for those who don't understand. I lived in a communist country so it's not for my benefit, but others might be curious.
There are a variety of views from different authors and political experiences. But they're mostly rooted on not having privately owned means of production (a consensus exists for big corporations at least). This would mean big corporations cannot be privately owned, it must belong to the workers themselves. This implies the destination of profits should be decided between its workers, and not its owners. This might even make many more people rich than just some random dude (like Musk) for owning the whole thing.
In general, there is no contradiction between being rich and communism. In fact, the workers should get the profits for what they build.
Dude, you don't know the first thing about communism. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." It means you don't take more than you need. "Rich communist" is an oxymoron.
First of all, I will say I'm definitely no expert on communism, but it's definitely not true that "I don't know a thing about it".
As I mentioned, there are quite a few views on what communism is. Communism precedes Marx and Engels and there is even a small book from Engels which discusses previous views of communism (called utopian) to their view of communism (called scientific). The phrase you mentioned precedes Marx and Engels's work and they study how that phrase could become true. In their work, Marx and Engels do mention scientific communism cannot be exclusively theoretical (which they call praxis), for the risk of being utopian. So according to past and current experiences (USSR, China, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, North Corea), there are quite a few developments and different views on communism. They don't all agree on everything, but they do agree on "not having privately owned means of production". On the Stalin era of USSR, it was considered something similar to the phrase you mentioned, but it was somewhat inneficient. People need incentives for their work and discoveries and it was not based exclusively on needs, as that phrase implies. The reality was complex, btw. This is really a generalistic view and don't expect it to be flawless.
Okay, maybe Lithuanian will explain better to an Estonian:
Once in the 19th century there was a rapid industrialization. Farmers and citizen guild-workers lost their economical value and had to turn into factory workers. At that time, there was massive unemployment, and factory owners were unregulated. Then a philosopher Karl Marx went in, and started to analyse. He concluded that, in history, it's always 'slaves vs landowners', then 'peasants vs seniors', and ultimately 'workers vs enterprise owners (bourgeoisie)'. He named this phenomenon 'class struggle', and hypothesised that, after workers will defeat bourgeoisie, then it would be possible to create a perfect egalitarian society with no exploitation, in which people have all the rights except the right to be rich. That was called 'Communism', a proposed ideal society.
His ideas attracted many followers, which were split into several political campus, for instance, Socialist democracy ('mild' socialism, rich people pay more taxes, etc.), Anarcho-Communism (no state, no regulations, lived only for a short period of time in Ukraine), and many more.
Then V. Lenin came in, and told there must be a 'peasants' revolution' that abolishes the existing state(s), kill all the enemies of that revolution, become a Socialist country (ie. State controls all the economy) and then slowly progress into Communism. His practices were furthermore refined by Stalin and were called 'Marxism-Leninism'. History of the USSR shows that the power of a Socialist state can be used to create a totalitarian prison.
So 'Communism' can mean either an egalitarian society or heading towards that direction, basically.
I appreciate your write up, but I think you replied to a different comment from some person in Estonia who might or might not have lived under that regime. Either way, Marxism-Leninism had been drilled into me for decades.
Oops. I thought lemm.ee is Lemmy for Estonians.
You lived in a country that called itself communist, in the same way that North Koreans live in a country that calls itself democratic. There has never been a country that actually achieved communism, because communism requires there be no state. At best these countries would claim that communism was their goal, but honestly most were lying, or at the very least co-opted and turned against their ideals somewhere down the line.
I do agree that the ideal communist state has never existed, though I need to challenge the assertion that communism demands the existence of no state. Anti-state philosophies are generally characterized as "anarchism" -- it's certainly true that communists and anarchists have historically held common interests, but in general they do not view themselves as members of the same group.
It's a weird distinction, but the distinction exists for a reason. Communists do not reject the establishment of a governing apparatus, so it's actually very inaccurate to say that "communism requires there to be no state". You could instead adopt the anarchist argument that "communism is self-defeating because it leads to the creation of non-communist states", but keep in mind that this is in-and-of-itself a rejection of communism in favor of communal anarchism.
The back and forth on what is and isn't communism will continue until there aren't two humans left to argue about it. I've described the classical Marxist view of communism including the withering away of the state. It has been redefined by various persons and groups over time, but I don't have a high opinion of those definitions.
Anarchists also do not inherently reject the establishment of a governing apparatus.
Very eloquently put! If you'll forgive me for quoting Engels (circa 1872) rather than Marx, I'd like to highlight a salient excerpt from his letters (bolded emphasis is my own, italicised emphasis preserved from original translation):
As you can see, even early Marxists did not actively advocate for the abolition of the state and in fact strongly sought to be perceived as separate from those who viewed abolition of the state as a fundamental prerequisite. Engels even ridicules the idea of completely abolishing state authority as magical thinking despite conceding that communism could eventually lead to the obviation of traditional state functions.
Fantastic! I thought that communism was impossible to achieve in a state, but if it is only achievable in 'no state', then we have to come up with a word more negative than 'impossible'.
Hah what? So you are running from bad corporations to daddy government? Somwhere I took another turn because this journey turned me into a libertarian.
Libertarian? Im not American, so im unfamiliar -- isn't that one just the Republican party with extra pedophilia?
As an American in order to understand our libertarians you must first understand the gilded age of American capitalism. It was an era of extreme wealth disparity, zero regulations, and everything was disgusting and dangerous. Libertarians dislike everything that ended that.
Well, libertarian doesn't necessarily mean someone in line with the Libertarian Party of the US. If we want to consider the meanings of these terms by referring to how they are understood to in the US, we would be all very confused, since everything in the US seems to have a twisted meaning.
See for example, their Fascist party is called the "Republican Party"... Their Right-center oriented party is often referred to as a "left-leaning" party... and finally there's another right-wing party with slightly different positions than the fascist party, calling themselves the "Libertarian Party", because why not! 🤷
I'm not American either so idk
Why do so many people think left vs right is government vs no government? It's fucking baffling. You think leftists just love the government? Just... why?? Who told you that? Why do you believe them?
"So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state."
So much love for state, here...
I'll tell you something that might shock you. I'm pretty much a communist. I also hate the state. Does that confuse you? It shouldn't!
Because all they know of history is the soviet union
Funny is that the same thinking apply to som left groups as well. (like anarchism)
Please tell me I misunderstood, and that you aren't implying anarchists love the state?
The initial answer to first comment stated that right side don’t want more laws vs left side wants more laws Then I thought, it is kinda the other way with my anarchist friends
In essence, kinda. The extreme left advocates for statelessness (among other things of course), but the extreme right is all for absolutism. You have libertarians and an-caps, but they're honestly misinformed.
I'm sorry I assumed Marxism-Leninism instead of libertarian socialism because of the predominant tankie culture here on lemmy.
Don't let the tankies steal the term "communism".
I even don't want to give up Marx.
I never knew what a tankie was until I came to Lemmy... now I see it everywhere. It's gross...
If workers run the government, then sure.
That's assuming that all workers have good intentions and consider the good of all humans before power.
Well, surprise! Workers are humans. And we have seen many times what happens when uncontrolled power has been given to any human group or individual humans.
There should be no power to the government. Only management positions. And those management positions need to be open to all people with abilities regarding those management positions.
Of course this discussion in this form is an oversimplification (e.g. no mention of whether/how to run a police force, a judiciary, or a military), but the point is that not only a "government being run by workers" wouldn't solve any problem, it would introduce even more, in my opinion. It's just as bad as effectively letting the corporations or rich people run the government. Looks at the US
Yo. You just described a worker run government.
In theory it's great, but have you seen the complete fucking braindead idiots we share this world with?
In India we have a corporation named AMUL. It is collectively run by 3.6 Million farmers. It has wide variety of dairy products such as milk, yoghurt, ice cream, chocolates etc. If farmers can... Then what's wrong in believing we can.
Edit, its not 5000, it is 3.6 Million milk producers
Companies, great! Government, horrible track record...
No problem with that! That's actually a great thing, in my opinion. The problem, however would be a government run by any specific group of people with any specific properties other than their abilities. Because otherwise it would inevitably lead to dictatorship, as it has been tried many times throughout the history.
In short:
corporations run by workers -> Good!
governments run specifically by workers/corporations/religious institutions/rich people/etc -> No, please no!
Everyone should be able to participate in running and managing our society.
"Worker" isn't a specific group
It's everyone. We are all workers
Workers controlling the state means absolute democracy for all.
Ok, fair enough. So, everyone should be allowed, regardless of their way of thinking, to participate in managing the society. Right?
(right?)
(Also, in general, regardless of who governs, the government still should not, under any circumstances, limit individual liberties and human rights, free access to information, etc, since these are very basic stuff and should not be overridden by any socio-economic system.)
You do realize that some of these idiots have way more power (money) than they should have any right to? Elon Musk, Bobby Kotick, ...
Elon is just an ultra autist, I don't think he's stupid if you make him do some engineering stuff.
I've actually never seen any reason to believe that he has any engineering chops.
The problem is: intelligence doesn’t help either. Sure, it lets you grasp problems pretty fast, makes you a good learner but do you have any ideas how many psychopaths are actually gifted?
As an autistic individual, I‘d say the autistic way would be pretty awesome as a government. You have to tell the truth and are not allowed to care how anyone receives it (what could go wrong, right?). I‘m obviously joking, mostly. I‘d explore it though.
I think the current way is the worst (turning more populist every day) because the majority of people is rather unintelligent and does not have a logical concept on life (from an autistic standpoint).
Say more about how the majority of people don’t have a logical concept of life from an autistic standpoint, I’m curious!
If you start reading about autistic people, you will most likely hear a couple things very often. It’s not a law as every autistic person is different but three common things I hear and read often are:
Obviously, there are a lot of other things that can identify or sum up autistic people but these fit the situation I‘m talking about. One more may be useful: we don’t suffer from the so called „framing effect“ where neurotypical people would make two different decisions on the same question according to the situation they’re in. Most autistic dont do this. We look at a problem without considering our current situation. Some say thats why we are less likely to become corrupt. We couldn’t care less if our friend really likes to work in our company. If someone else is better suited, he gets hired, for example.
This is a very poor understanding of autism. You've taken such a small sliver that this comparison is going to not only offend a lot of people but also confuse a lot of people. The given properties you're invoking are such a small subset of autism and not even that widespread and hell, it ignores the core reasoning behind some. Brutal honesty is often tied with inability to be empathetic. You're doing yourself a disservice using autism as your "model" here.
Thanks for your thoughts. I simply disagree. Being autistic means something else for every person who fits the description and for me it is this.
Attacking my personal understanding and using the wording you do is overreaching and mean. Instead of telling me to not say something, you could ask what I meant or how I arrived to this conclusion. But you chose not to.
If you are either a psychologist or an autistic person, you may speak about your own ideas. If not, I ask you to leave autistic people talking about the experience of being autistic be.
If there's one form of social structure that has a worse track with fewer successful examples than communism, it's libertarianism. Hope you like bears.
You know that Rothbard stole that term from anarcho-communists (libertarian socialists), right?
Edit: Thought you meant right-wing libertarianism. Was confused, since IMHO Marx (without Lenin/Mao/etc.) is actually quite compatible with left-wing libertarianism. Even if he had a personal feud with Bakunin.
Libertarian cannot work without socialism essentially. You cannot have a free market where the worker doesn't own the means of production. Power will always pool to select individuals and those who have collected power have shown no remotely reliable track record to serve humanity's best interest over their own. In fact, it's regularly shown the exact opposite. Libertarianism is just an excuse to act against the good of society for your own benefit and fuck anyone you step on along the way. I've never heard a defense of libertarianism that is actually good for society. It's basically just dressing up the belief you can't be forced to do good, so you can't get in trouble if you do bad.
I think you're describing right libertarianism (which is what is known as libertarianism in the US, I think), which is influenced mainly by the ideas of Ayn Rand.
But there is also left libertarianism, which is not based on "free market" as per those libertarians. Examples of people on this spectrum I think would be Noam Chomsky (US), Bernie Sanders (US), Jeremy Corbyn (UK)... and historically: Nestor Makhno (Ukraine), National confederation of labor (Spain, fighting against Franco), Iberian Anarchist Federation (Same), and effectively any other left-leaning Anarchism-oriented person, movement or party.
Looking into it, I can see some issues with the idea (I don't understand how it wouldn't fall pretty to the tragedy of the commons), plus I definitely don't think Sanders would fit into there. I don't see any of his proclaimed positions fitting into any definition of left-libertarian. Plus I don't see how left-libertarian wouldn't fall prey to the same problem we have with capitalism now, despite being an anti-capitalist notion. It's strong sense of individual ownership of anything other than natural resources seems at odds with a lot of other socialist concepts. I will caveat all of this with saying I have a very limited understanding of left-libertarianism, but just reading any given definition just seems to give rise to very clear contradictions. I feel like either it is problematic or no one is really sharing good definitions of it.
Because it's a fallacy and doesn't actually describe a commons
I ran from bad corporations to workplace democracy where does that place me?
Full democracy? If so then rather something liberal.
Better a government for the people instead of just the ruling class.
But you wouldn't understand that. You probably find tim poole entertaining, lol.