Just as capitalist states are “authoritarian” against working class interests, socialist states are “authoritarian” against capitalist interests.
The state is a tool for one class to oppress another. The goal of (most) communists is to transition from capitalism — where the capitalist class is in power — to a stateless, classless communist society via socialism — where the working class is in power.
Public perception of which is more “authoritarian” therefore depends on which class is currently in power and is able to manufacture consent, and that is the capitalist class in the vast majority of the world right now since the USSR’s overthrow.
socialist states are “authoritarian” against capitalist interests
The problem with this claim is that the USSR was quite authoritarian towards everyone. The Gulags were a place merely of political repression. Political jokes that are part and parcel of American late night comedy shows would get people harsh labor sentences during certain periods. The claim that this had to happen to protect the working class seems thin.
read the resent news of Julian Assange or John Pilger there’d be a lot more if i could think to name them
One regime’s political-dissident-by-speech is another’s dissident-by-drug-addiction. America’s “War on Drugs” was purely political disenfranchisement along racial lines, and it’s a major reason why the US continues to have higher incarceration rates than the USSR had in many of the years the Gulag system was operational.
By the way, prison rape jokes have long been a part of those late night comedy shows, to give you an idea of just how ingrained the American prison culture is.
Because we live in a capitalist society where capitalists control our media and education. Back in the fifties, you’d be jailed or even killed for being a communist (or gay) in the United States of America. Why do we view this as any less authoritarian than the USSR? Because it’s our past.
Because the USSR killed millions of its own people in concentration camps and gulags. The two are so incomparable.
While I agree that the USSR was worse, the two absolutely are comparable.
- The US had concentration camps. Arguably it still does, just not for its own citizens.
- The US currently has inhumane and deadly prison conditions, but they used to be far worse.
Comparing deaths may put USSR on top, but the US isn’t that far behind.
Comparing authoritarianism is another story. Both quieted political dissent in the same way: raiding opposing political organizations and jailing or killing their leaders. That is authoritarianism.
Because propaganda works
From Losurdo - A critique of the category of totalitarianism:
Nowadays we constantly hear denunciations, directed toward Islam, of ‘religious totalitarianism’ or of the ‘new totalitarian enemy that is terrorism’. The language of the Cold War has reappeared with renewed vitality, as confirmed by the warning that American Senator Joseph Lieberman has issued to Saudi Arabia: beware the seduction of Islamic totalitarianism, and do not let a ‘theological iron curtain’ separate you from the Western world.
Even though the target has changed, the denunciation of totalitarianism continues to function with perfect efficiency as an ideology of war against the enemies of the Western world. And this ideology justifies the violation of the Geneva Convention, the inhuman treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, the embargo and collective punishment inflicted upon the Iraqis and other peoples, and the further torment perpetrated against the Palestinians. The struggle against totalitarianism serves to legitimate and transfigure the total war against the ‘barbarians’ who are alien to the Western world.
Projection of the contradiction of capital, capitalists states only allow freedom to those that can pay and has the illusion of free choice only when it comes to consumption.
We haven’t had a “communist” country yet. Communism is a spontaneous, free market for voluntarily donated goods and services.
Communism is basically how groups of people under about 100 behave naturally. Any group of friends on a road trip is inherently communist, as is any tribe of people, as is any family.
At larger scale, this kind of “just pay attention and do what needs doing” approach to economic distribution breaks down. Marx believed that with enough material abundance, humans would naturally behave communistically at larger scales as well. I think he’s wrong, but it remains to be seen.
So far we’ve never had communism at the scale of a county. We’ve had socialism, which is where the government forcibly redistributes wealth.
The reason that socialist countries are more authoritarian is that socialism is by definition the non-free-market version of that process.
Under capitalism, if you have an acre of farmland, that’s your acre of farmland until you decide to sell it. Under socialism, whether it’s your acre of farmland is the decision of the central economic planning committee, and in order for that committee to be able to decide whether you keep your farm or not, it needs to have the authority and power to take it from you. And the policy to do so.
Do you see why this requires a more authoritarian society?
Let’s look at it another way. Under capitalism, ie under what we call the “free market”, you own the farm. That means you have authority over it. You have authority over yourself. There’s just as much authority; it’s just that the authority is broken into little bits and distributed to people who own capital.
Under socialism, the people own the farm. Except “the people” can’t effectively operate with anything like a will, due to a lack of borg hive mind telepathy mechanics unifying their will into a single instrument, and so “the people’s” authority is wielded by the Central Committee.
When authority is centralized in this way, taken away from individuals and given instead to the state, we call this an “authoritarian” state.
Authoritarian therefore doesn’t refer to more authority; it refers to the authority being concentrated in the center.
And the authority over economic decisions being concentrated in the center is, by definition, “socialism”.
To be more accurate when talking online its better to distinguish between who is intended to be in charge (capitalism vs socialism) and what political systems are in place to implement it.
China for example has some state capitalist characteristics meaning the state is ran in part and for the owners of capital. This is where some of their strongest economic intervention its policies stem from.
Another example would be community cooperatives operating outside of the state. They clearly are not “capitalistic” by their nature but also are not a form of central planning.
Another weird breakdown of these dichotomyies are inside of a megacorps operations, which while the corp is clearly owned by, and operated by the owners of capital (as virtual representation of shares) internally it is ran as centrally planned entity with no free market between departments (though some entities do expirment with heavily regulated market like Amazon does).
Tldr
Its a complicated subject, but boiling everything down to a false dichotomy based on 50 years of evidence does it a huge disservice. A better one to separate the intended stakeholders and what is the intended ways allowed for conflict resolution and coordination.
A socialist business (exanple worker owned cooperatives) A capitalistic business (publically traded companies)
Of course most modern organizations have multiple interest groups so you can have a state that has both capitalist favored laws, and working class and small business owner and NGO and etc etc
Isn’t that generally said by countries that oppose them?
The land of the less authoritarian had race discrimination until half a century ago, right? Seeing the BLM, it seems to have a prominent role even now. So are they any better?
They aren’t?
Americans live in an authoritarian plutocracy, but refuse to believe it
from my own experience observing people migrating from the soviet union, they’re considered more authoritarian for the efforts to keep the workers in the worker’s paradise, the moment you have to put up walls and border checkpoints to keep people in, it’s over. you’re an authoritarian state, no longer actually socialist imho.
How is this a controversial take? If you need a wall to keep people in or attempting to emigrate makes you a “defector”, or you’ve built up a huge surveillance network where your neighbours or even partners can report you for bullshit “crimes” , you’re an authoritarian state.
tankies, I guess.
I believe it’s inherent to the system. The whole point of a communist system is a centrally planned, and controlled, economy. This gives the state immense control and as inherent to every form of government, self preservation at any cost.
As discussed in “rules for rulers” by cgp grey, there is no such thing as a benevolent or kind dictator. All politicians and leaders will use any means available to themselves to further their own ambitions.
🤣
Because authoritarians took over the Soviet Union and proceeded to try to run every other revolution.
Because our bourgeois state propaganda and corporate media tell us that they are, because it’s in their best interest that we believe it.
one of my favorite takes on this subject is from This Soviet World by Anna Louise Strong:
I see a lot of comments saying they aren’t. I’d disagree, but I agree they don’t have to be. The issue is most of the major powers in the world have opposed leftist governments anytime they show up. The ones that didn’t have a strong central power and cultural hegymony collapsed under the pressure. Any nation that had a weaker central power was either destroyed, couped, or undermined by the west.
There is nothing intrinsically authoritarian about leftism (really, I’d say it’s less authoritarian in it’s ideals), but authoritarianism is easier to hold together when outside pressures are trying to destroy you.
mccarthyism, red scare, American and western Europe propaganda. listen to Blow Back podcast it explains a lot of political meddling and how capitalism is working in its best interest in crippling socialism
