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> Communism killed more than a hundred million people in the 20th century. I would hope we have figured out by now that communism doesn't work.

So did Capitalism [0]. Now what?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Livre_noir_du_capitalisme



> So did Capitalism

The logic that attributes those deaths to "capitalism" is lot more sketchy than the obvious fact that the deaths I attributed to communism were directly due to the actions of governments who explicitly declared themselves to be communists and who directly took the actions that resulted in the deaths with the explicit purpose of advancing communism. "Capitalism" isn't even a single philosophy, let alone one with an explicit manifesto that all the governments who killed all those people in the name of communism explicitly said they were following.


The wars, purging campaigns, African slave trade and colonial wars were all made by governments that were (and declared themselves) capitalists and that did actions with the explicit purpose of advancing profits for their dominant classes. Several ethnic conflicts also were provoked by them. I do not think that we have so much difference here.

The problem is that it is normalized in western ideology to consider any death in communist countries as death by communism and any death in capitalist countries as explained by several other factors that do not relate with capitalism.

> "Capitalism" isn't even a single philosophy,

But I can say the same for communism. Or any other concept: there always will be differences in interpretations. And capitalists do not need an explicit manifesto because they are already the hegemonic power. They already succeeded in their past revolutions to give power to the bourgeoisie. The ideals for what they fought in the past are already normalized in the society.


Communism and capitalism are allies, and frankly two sides of the same coin. Marx repeatedly makes it clear in his communistic manifesto, that a society first needs to become capitalist in order to break down traditions and family, before it is ready for a communist revolution. He states that communists should side with capitalists against traditional society, and then get rid off the capitalists after that. Smart capitalist politicians switch coats and become loyal party functionaries when that happens, corporate leaders keep their nice jobs and report to the party instead of to the shareholders. Bankers remain untouchable in both systems.

Just the fact that people think the world is left/right, socialist/capitalist proves that these two allied ideologies have been extremely successful in the last century.




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