Guys, leftism really is anything other than traditional conservative but the kind of left I am talking about here is the anti-capitalist, egalitarian left. The kinda of left that emerged as a reaction to capitalism, and to the latter ties also movements such as feminism. The idea is to equalize the people, remove hierarchies, abolish private property, and manage the society.
But for some reason, the teleological outcome of any of these movements is return to capitalism. A Javier Milei moment. Bolsheviks in Eastern Europe and China wanted to undo completely the old structures. Abolished private property, collectivized the farms, starved the population, gulags, mass executions, activism. But after the leaders passed away, you would see the next crop of leaders drinking Pepsi Cola. There were shops in Commie nations, like Berezka in USSR or Tuzex in Czechoslovakia (other countries had their own) where you could buy Western consumer goods for vouchers obtained through handing in hard currency from the West. I recall my relatives in Austria and the US would send my grandparents money that would be then spent in Tuzex.
To be frank, these shops were temples of socialist failure. The commie governments needed the dollars and the people needed the goods. 😆👌 The commie government weren’t able to create the material culture that was offered in Berezka. And motherfucking hipsters today in Starbucks write tweets or tumbler posts on how capitalism is evil while they live in a big city and study a bullshit degree in an expensive university. I feel your struggle bro. And then you go on a date with blue haired sally who talks feminism out of her ass and then the expects you to pay. Generations of butt ugly women have fought for the rights of women to have their own money but women still demand men to pay on dates. You have to buy that punani sucker! 😆👌
Rejection of this egalitarian discourse has made me a right winger forever. Equality always mean there will be people buying shit in Berezka. Women’s rights will lead to her money is her money and your money is also her money. But don’t you dare not give her your money, she will use powers of the state to show you some equality.😆👌
PS: Pokinane says how she hates the rich while being worth 20 million dollars.
As you probably know, I am a right-winger and believe in private property, low taxes, and laissez faire that I call in Czech “let the people make money”…
But something has been bugging me of late. Capitalism, or whatever this is that we have here kinda sucks. Commie rule in the Eastern Bloc also sucked and that’s why it failed, and this current shit will also fail.
Various spergs would say that the Communist parties failed to build Communism, and the Western liberal democratic governments do not practice pure capitalism. If you knew about the institutional control over small businessmen like myself here in Czechia, you would demand reform. But some institutional controls are definitely necessary, worker’s rights for instance. In a pure ANCAP capitalism the workers would be made to work 12 hours for few satoshis. Trust me bro, that’s how it goes…
The biggest problem of commie rule was they did not provide the populace with consoomer shit. I remember how my grandma told me after she visited relatives in Austria how they have 10 types of yoghurt on the shelves in shops. This is reminiscent of the Russian meme about 13 types of sausage. Capitalism provides, we now have yoghurt to choose from but motherfucker it is lower quality than in Austria. Welcome to capitalism motherfucker, where the Czech untermenschen are made to eat slop by international corporations.
The issue is, the commies did not allow the people jeans, rock and roll, and pornography. And that’s why they failed. They should have let at least one of those things to be available to the people, and they would be in power still. They should have also allowed the people to do business and get rich. Chinese commies don’t give a fuck about the inequality it creates if it lifts people out of poverty in mass numbers.
The example of China shows that people do not yearn much for political freedoms that in liberal democracies amount to no more than the chance to vote for several parties instead of one. Ultimately, you do not have freedom of speech out here. You can lose your job if you have a loose mouth. You can even stand trial if you overstep the line, and good people get on your case.
This brings me to the fact that the capitalist, liberal marketeer philosophy is geared at making everything private. In my opinion, private property is a key to financial freedom, and the more people have real estate, stocks, bonds, crypto, savings and shit, the better. But should everything be private? Say for instance essential utilities like water and electricity, and healthcare, should that be private?
You want these things to be affordable for the people, and private companies tend to be oriented towards making profits for their shareholders. Governments privatize utilities with claims that business competition will make utilities more affordable to the consumer but it is usually the case that the business is out there to make money and not provide cheap energy and resources to people and businesses. Businesses are not even efficient at building infrastructure. They always go for the cheapest option. This is why gas powered power plants are built everywhere instead of coal, let alone nuclear. But then a little inconvenience like the Russo-Ukrainian war comes.
There is also talk that large investment funds like BlackRock will finance infrastructure projects and then will extract rent from the peasants. This neofeudal arrangement is absolutely brutal to those that are not on the receiving end of rent. The worst is when you are wagie, you are dependent on your wage, you are basically a slave. Imagine, your employer pays you in fiat that your government prints with abandon, and it loses its value to inflation. I mean, they should pay you with stocks of the company, or something solid like gold bars, or Bitcoin. That’s what I convert my fiat income into.
If like me, you live in Eastern Europe, you know how depressed the wages here are. My coworkers sometimes don’t eat at the end of the month before pay day, or eat some disgusting slop. Globalization means that your industry now competes with produces in places that have depressed wages, cheaper slaves. Companies don’t give a fuck about workers, they care about profits. On the other hand, in a world of modern communications and planes, and intercontinental freight ships, nobody owes you a job. You either move to greener pastures, or try to eke out the best out of your existence wherever you are.
Look this is Niall Ferguson seeing parallels between the late USSR and the West today…
Here is some strange observation, Commie nations tended to have better birth rates… or at least slightly better.
North Korean Birth Rate
Similarly, the Baltic birthrates have dropped with the fall of communism. Combine this with
Latvian Birth Rates
South Korean work culture is absolutely brutal, in North Korea they have gulags for political dissidents. Somehow though, the North Koreans still manage to breed…
Also, in a capitalist system, unless you have a high paying managerial position, you cannot afford real estate in big cities, and even if you make good money, you still have to become a mortgage slave. I am not even talking about a particular country, it sucks all over. It sucks in the US, it sucks in the UK, it sucks in Czechia, it sucks in China. Increasingly, only wealthy investment funds can scoop up all the real estate, and you slaves will be paying rent to them.
The commie government in Czechoslovakia built commie blocks for the people, and 27% still live in commie blocks today. The commies built nuclear power plants that keep the lights on and built dams on the rivers that provide water for the cities. For some reason, the post-commie government hasn’t built much. They can’t even build a highway to Austria. Actually, the flats in the commie blocks ain’t cheap now.
To sum up, commie rule kinda sucked but the turn to capitalism didn’t bring a better world. I think it ultimately comes to division of roles for the government and the business. But the question what should be the prerogative of government and is what could be left to private enterprise? And should every place be the same?
Insomniac Resurrected 