| ▲ | shafyy 2 days ago |
| Except that there's a difference between extremes. In political-left world, everybody has health care, access to housing and a liveable salary. In a political-right world, people are deported and killed, and the unlucky ones (i.e. the poor) live on the streets and can't afford to visit a doctor. |
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| ▲ | jajko 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| You haven't seen much of the world, have you. What you say is patently untrue. Access to housing is nowhere in leftist countries (also what does that mean, failed social experiments in South America, France or someplace else? russia and China are highly capitalistic dictatorship, nothing left leaning there). Liveable salary guarantee - nope not true check how folks serving you at mcdonalds live. Healthcare ain't completely free anywhere, ie dental care is super expensive all across Europe. But this past point is closest to truth in some places. |
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| ▲ | shafyy 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I should have said "should have...", maybe this was not clear. I am not claiming tha there's a "perfect" country. Some countries come pretty close though, where you have affordable public transportation, affordable housing and affordable health care. For example and Germany and Switzerland (two countries where I have lived for long periods of time), nobody will die because they can't afford health care. Nobody will be homeless because they can't afford an apartment (yes, I know, there is also homelessness in these countries, but for a variety of other reasons). Doe that mean it's perfect? No, of course not, there is always room for improvement. | |
| ▲ | bpt3 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The place he described exists only in the mind of avowed leftists, who refuse to accept that it will never be realized but are more than willing to force others to suffer in order to try yet again. |
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| ▲ | Thorrez 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Most communist countries haven't been such a utopia as you describe. >He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution." https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When... |
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| ▲ | shafyy 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I am not talking about communism. Nobody on today's political left spectrum of is seriously talking about communism. This is about socialism, or social capitalism. | | | |
| ▲ | okasaki 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Cool story from an alcoholic traitor > On 2 January 1992, Yeltsin, acting as his own prime minister, began a major economic and administrative reform ordered the liberalization of foreign trade, prices, and currency. At the same time, Yeltsin followed a policy of "macroeconomic stabilization", a harsh austerity regime designed to control inflation. Under Yeltsin's stabilization programme, interest rates were raised to extremely high levels to tighten money and restrict credit. To bring state spending and revenues into balance, Yeltsin raised new taxes heavily, cut back sharply on government subsidies to industry and construction, and made steep cuts to state welfare spending. > In early 1992, prices skyrocketed throughout Russia, and a deep credit crunch shut down many industries and brought about a protracted depression. The reforms devastated the living standards of much of the population, especially the groups dependent on Soviet-era state subsidies and welfare programs.[108] Through the 1990s, Russia's GDP fell by 50%, vast sectors of the economy were wiped out, inequality and unemployment grew dramatically, whilst incomes fell. Hyperinflation, caused by the Central Bank of Russia's loose monetary policy, wiped out many people's personal savings, and tens of millions of Russians were plunged into poverty.[109][110] | | |
| ▲ | Thorrez a day ago | parent | next [-] | | If you know of a communist country that has had good civil rights and good prosperity, let me know. | | |
| ▲ | okasaki 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | Could say the same thing about capitalism. Is it the US with a $7 minimum wage and bankrupt medical treatment? Is it the UK where the average salary is $37k and houses cost 500k, and a single train ride is 10% of monthly salary? Is it Germany where they arrest you for displaying a Palestinian flag? |
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| ▲ | lupusreal 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Communism in Russia proved to be great at producing alcoholic traitors, because the material conditions and quality of life it produced was abysmal. So yeah, people drank a lot and got the fuck out when they could. |
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| ▲ | potato3732842 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | You know, for all their ills at least the historical communists meant well. Sure, some of them were pretty f-ing brutal but at least they tried to make their societies better, tried to make their countrymen richer and more prosperous. The comparable people today telling us we have have to live under constant surveillance and be subjugated by all powerful governments and government intertwined institutions and organizations or otherwise losing all our rights and practical autonomy to various collective interests don't even do us the courtesy of pretending that the goal is to everything better and nicer. They just tell us that we'll all gaslight ourselves into liking the bugs or whatever and that despite everything being worse it's somehow better because stonks up and microplastics down, or whatever other metrics they also control. | | |
| ▲ | bpt3 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Who is this imaginary "historical communist" you mentioned? You're claiming Mao killing millions with idiotic policies (not to mention all the scapegoats he killed intentionally) was okay because he was "trying"? Or are you talking about Stalin, Lenin, or Castro? Who is telling you that you "have to live under constant surveillance" and so on? You'd rather have someone run the country into the ground while lying to you about than intentions (which you're gullible enough to believe apparently, for better or worse) than not? I have no idea what is happening in our schools these days, but obviously something is lacking. | | |
| ▲ | esseph 2 days ago | parent [-] | | "Who is telling you that you "have to live under constant surveillance" and so on?" I was born in the US, didn't have a choice! | | |
| ▲ | bpt3 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You think you live under constant surveillance in the US? While there might be more surveillance than you like, claiming there is constant surveillance everywhere in the nation (or anywhere really) is ridiculous. | | |
| ▲ | esseph a day ago | parent [-] | | You highly and vastly underestimate the scope of data collection. | | |
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