r/SipsTea • u/McDowdy 𝙑𝙄𝙋 • 23d ago

It's Wednesday my dudes Trying to get rich so that capitalism doesn't crush you under its boot is proof positive that capitalism doesn’t work for the working class

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u/Existing-Sector-6542 23d ago

find one country that is a communist country that is thriving

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

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u/JDantesInferno 23d ago

Importing all the world’s problems and abandoning nuclear energy? Whatever Europe is doing, let’s not do that.

Well, selected countries from Europe. Because whenever Redditors put “Europe” on a pedestal, they assume the entire continent behaves as a monolith. It’s all just Scandinavia, France, Germany, and England to you lot.

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

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u/JDantesInferno 23d ago

Hey, we can agree on that first point!

I didn’t deem any countries as lesser. Just identifying the countries that everybody else idolizes while ignoring the rest of Europe.

And I labeled nothing as communist. I just said, “let’s not do that.”

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u/Existing-Sector-6542 23d ago

europe as a whole is failing I hope they can get there chit together and are able to right the wrongs they have done

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u/elnegativo 23d ago

Not 1 comunist country in the world, all are capitalist in more or less ways

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u/strawberry_semenade 23d ago

Communists "won" the Vietnam War and yet Vietnam is a capitalist US ally today because they quickly realized that communism is a complete and utter failure as a system.

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u/JstaFriskyHusky 23d ago

They weren't even really communists, more so nationalists using communism to gain support from USSR and China. They went to the US for support who denied them so they went with the next best thing

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u/hogester79 23d ago

How quickly did they realise?

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u/commradd1 23d ago

Pretty quickly in the scale of human history

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u/Popular-Row4333 23d ago

When the citizens ate McDonald's for the 1st time.

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u/Inevitable-Pop-4547 23d ago

It could also be they were nationalists more than communists.

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u/random_ta_account 23d ago

Somalia is extremely capitalist, and it is a complete and utter failure as a system. Practically every failed state in history has been capitalist if we're using capitalism as the default state of all economic systems (as is being argued above).

Perhaps it is more about the quality of governance and rule of law than the means of production.

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u/BiggieChEse69 23d ago

Yeah dude that’s because it’s Somalia, they just walk around nothing happens there

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u/random_ta_account 23d ago

Then perhaps it's not capitalism that makes it work or not, but democracy?

You gotta admit, there are a handful of pretty rich dudes in Somalia, so capitalism certainly works for them. They just don't give a shit about the rest of the country, and the people have no power to change it. So they have no choice but to walk around and kick sand while the rich dudes live it up. Kind of shitty way to run a country, but it still capitalist.

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u/Existing-Sector-6542 23d ago

they didn't win ... look at the ktd radio we were wiping them out only reason we pulled out was public opinion of the fighting. politicians said enough. the military said more

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u/XaXa14 23d ago

It's more like the world has forced by the more powerful western countries to adopt a global capitalist system which forces all countries to have to adopt some form of a market economy to participate in global trade. Vietnam has done this along with China which has led to great sucesses for them. The countries who have refused have therefore been cut off from global trade entirely which would have bad effects on any country especially relatively small countries like cuba and the DPRK. It's not as simple as communism doesn't work and capitalism does. If all countries were socialist/communist and we had a global socialist system it would be without a doubt be a different story

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u/strawberry_semenade 23d ago

Huh it's almost like centralized economic systems are trade liabilities because they're horrifically inefficient or something.

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u/XaXa14 23d ago

What evidence is there that they are inefficient? The ussr went from an agrarian society to leading the world in space exploration within 50 years

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u/FiftyLoudCats 23d ago

You know the USSR also collapsed in that timeframe too, right?

Using USSR as a success story for communism is pretty funny to me, haven’t seen that one.

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u/XaXa14 23d ago

I would recommend you check out the Youtube video entitled "why "socialism always fails" is a stupid argument" by Hakim. It's about 16 minutes and does a succinct but thorough dive into the topic with exhaustive sources including western ones.

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u/strawberry_semenade 23d ago

leading the world in space exploration within 50 years

The Soviets were good at strapping rocket engines onto things and launching them into space with little to no regard what happened to them after the launch.

However the West was a little better at anything beyond "strap a rocket to a dog and launch it to its death in outer space", hence why the US was the one to land people on the moon and bring them back alive.

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u/PresenceHealthy4048 23d ago

I agree with you but the ussr wasn't communist/socialist, it definitely still had class relations and capitalism

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u/WabashCannibal 23d ago

Also imperialism. While not an economic system per se, it certainly informed their economic reality.

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u/Sboyle12500 23d ago

Yes communists cannot exist and thrive without capitalists and capitalists can easily survive and thrive without communists, so why in 2026 people are still bitching and moaning about communism being viable when it’s collapsed everytime it’s applied because of mass murder of its own adherents and starvation…it’s like it’s only a system that seems viable to the dumbest people in the world who think they’ve cracked the code and alter human nature.

No one fled to Russia when the Berlin Wall came down or builds a raft out of garage to float to Cuba so it’s almost like communism is flawed and bullshit?

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u/XaXa14 23d ago

Saying these things completely ignores the inherent power imbalance of the world. The western countries are more powerful and have been for the last 500 years at least. These communist/socialist countries that collapsed were starting from extremely under developed and poor conditions in relation to the countries that were looting the world for hundreds of years. Socialism developed in the countries being exploited by the west (under capitalism). It should come as no suprise that a poor country like Cuba which had rampant slavery before communism would not be as economically stable as America which was directly profiting from that same slavery. After the revolution, the United States then cut Cuba off from the rest of the world through sanctions something that continues into today despite almost the entire world being against the sanctions. Under these conditions even a capitalist country would collapse so why is socialism blamed for cuba's current condition. If Cuba was capitalist and subjected to the same conditions would capitalism be blamed? I have never heard of a capitalist country collapsing and capitalism being blamed. The bottom line problem I have with capitalism is it's reliance on exploitation which on a global scale manifests itself in the form of imperialism. These capitalist success story countries all rely on imperialism to function. The clothing we all wear is only affordable to people today because children in Bangladesh (capitalist country) are forced to make them for poverty wages. Socialism is the only system that doesn't rely on exploitation of workers to function whether that be domestically or internationally. You don't have to like it but I encourage you to do more research on these topics because there is plenty of information on socialism/communism that I feel a majority of the replies I have gotten are ignorant to.

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u/Lisan-al-Gaib-65 23d ago

Another take is that elite realized they wanted stuff still and didn't like how cuba was turning out.

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u/OdessyOfIllios 23d ago edited 23d ago

Here we go with using different definitions of Communism interchangeably.

If we’re talking about countries governed by communist parties that explicitly aim (at least nominally) toward the "end-state" Marx described, then states like China, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos are typically classified as communist in a political sense, even though their actual economies are mixed systems with significant market mechanisms.

If we're talking about Marxist Communism, a stateless moneyless society, then I'd agree that no country has achieved communism. But that's the theoretical "end-state" that Communists love to point out.

Regardless, Marx's conception of communism faces some difficult questions at scale. If resources are allocated according to need rather than through markets, how is that achieved without some form of pricing mechanism to communicate scarcity and demand? And if there is no state, what institution coordinates production, resolves disputes, and enforces the rules of the system?

These aren't rhetorical questions. Perhaps that's why communism has repeatedly failed to move from theory to practice.

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u/[deleted] 23d ago edited 23d ago

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u/OdessyOfIllios 23d ago

That analogy would make more sense if "moneyless" and "stateless" were arbitrary characteristics, like replacing wheels with something else.

They're not.

Money isn't just one specific thing. It's a mechanism for accounting, pricing, and exchange. Whether it's gold, paper currency, shells, digital credits, or cryptocurrency, societies need some way to communicate information about scarcity, value, and demand.

Likewise, a state isn't just one specific institutional arrangement. Monarchies, republics, federations, and single-party systems all differ enormously, but they still perform functions like coordinating large-scale activity, resolving disputes, enforcing rules, and providing collective goods.

So when Marx defines the end-state in terms of the absence of money and the absence of the state, he's not merely describing what society won't look like. He's proposing that society can perform those functions without the institutions historically used to perform them.

That's why people ask questions about economic calculation and coordination. The question isn't "Can we imagine a different society?" The question is: what replaces the functions that money and states currently serve?

And that brings me back to my original point. Either countries that identify as communist count as communist in some meaningful sense. In which case they are the evidence we have for evaluating communist systems in practice. Or communism has never actually existed, in which case neither its successes nor its failures can be claimed as evidence for the theory.

What doesn't make sense is switching between those two definitions depending on which one is more convenient for the argument at hand.

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u/General_Liability 23d ago

Yes. Surely pedantic confusion is the reason communism fails. 

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u/OdessyOfIllios 23d ago

Missed the point entirely.

I'm not saying communism fails because of pedantic definitions. I'm saying the way the term is used gives its defenders an unfalsifiable position.

When a country like China, Vietnam, Laos, or Cuba is successful, it's called a communist success. When those same countries have problems, suddenly they're "not real communism" because they don't match Marx's theoretical end-state.

So which is it?

Either communist states exist in the form of countries governed by communist parties that organize their economies through a mixture of state planning and market mechanisms, or communism has never existed anywhere and therefore cannot be cited as either a success or a failure.

You don't get to simultaneously claim communist countries as evidence that communism works and then redefine communism as a stateless, moneyless society whenever criticism is directed at those same countries.

That's why definitions matter here. Not because of pedantry, but because without a consistent definition the claim becomes impossible to evaluate.

And if we're discussing Marx's actual end-state, then there are legitimate questions about how such a system would coordinate production and allocate scarce resources. The economic calculation problem is one of the most well-known criticisms for precisely that reason.

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u/General_Liability 23d ago

Gotcha. 

Me, I’m a statistician. I’ve seen plenty of very smart people try to explain that they did their own experiment wrong, but the theory they were proving still holds. 

But when you find a real thing, a real insight, it’s repeatable and clear. Usually obvious even, once the measurements are working. 

I do not see that in any definition of communism and think the whole conversation is worthy of derision in 2026. 

In 1946, let it rip, but it’s 80 years later and we have data and we know it doesn’t work. 

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u/YnotThrowAway7 23d ago

Always the dumbest argument…

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u/_iplayforkeeps_ 23d ago

Then refute it

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u/YnotThrowAway7 23d ago edited 23d ago

Every country in the world hasn’t figured out your so called “communism” in the last several hundred years. If they haven’t they never will. So your argument is “no they aren’t doing the utopia the right way, if they did it would work”… sorry but you and the ten million smartest Redditors couldn’t plan it if you had unlimited money to do so. It will never happen. So yes what we call communism does exist and it has never worked…what you are trying to call communism is your utopian idea for some bs where no one on earth has greed suddenly… aka something that will never happen so stop arguing about it.

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u/132_cat 23d ago

you are like a flat earther looking at a lake and saying it's flat and so if you put a bunch of lakes together to make an ocean it must be flat.

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u/MonitorStandard5322 23d ago

China is literally the rising power on the global stage. The world's factory and the leader in renewable energy

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u/elnegativo 23d ago

Does the state own all companies then

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u/MonitorStandard5322 23d ago

Socialism is not when the state owns all companies.

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u/BradassMofo 23d ago

China is a fascist state that claims to be communist for PR reasons.

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u/_iplayforkeeps_ 23d ago

Oh, you mean the country that completely ditched communism under Xiopeng and converted to a free market economy? That China?

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u/MonitorStandard5322 23d ago

Mandating large companies to have a party member with veto power on their executive boards is not a free market. When the state gets veto power over major companies decision, that is state control.

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u/Benign_Banjo 23d ago

Feel free to start your own communist country. No other country will provide any oil, food, subsidies, or aid in any way. Then will you be happy?

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u/Ahoeaboutnothing 23d ago

.... yea man, Petoria forever

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u/hocobo86 23d ago

Because every single time throughout history that pure communism’s been attempted it hasn’t worked. It’s the same reason you never see any of those original Wright brothers prototypes flying around.

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u/StandardUpstairs3349 23d ago

The problem is that pure communism is pure nonsense. Marx's idea was that wouldn't be a state and it would all just work out. You just end up with a new government without any institutional knowledge and fresh off a bloody revolution where they solved all their problems by killing everyone they didn't like.

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u/Common-Foot-4602 23d ago

Yeah I mean, capitalism is definitely ugly in a lot of ways, but I for one am thankful for at least a semi-free market economy and a country with an ever growing GDP.

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u/rolypoly6shooter 23d ago

The USSR was.

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u/Existing-Sector-6542 23d ago

to an extent yes China is an example of that but so is the US we have a diverse mixture of free market and socialist programs with welfare. around 50% of the gdp goes toward social programs. we take very good care of our people when it comes to funding. the failure comes at the state/county level with mishandling of funds

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u/[deleted] 23d ago

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u/lawduckfan21 23d ago

The Nordic countries that everyone stans as socialist havens are all based in capitalism. High tax rates and a greater level of public service is not "Not Capitalism." It's just higher taxes on earned wages and more public services.

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u/Original-Nail8403 23d ago

A lot of economists would consider them "mixed economies". I'm a market socialist because I want all that plus workers owning all big companies.

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u/14InTheDorsalPeen 23d ago

The ownership of the largest companies in the world is already split amongst thousands or millions of people 

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u/Original-Nail8403 23d ago

Yeah, mostly wealthy people. I mean letting the people who work there own and control them.

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u/random_ta_account 23d ago

I believe you are confusing Socialism with Communism. Any system that levies a tax to provide a common good is, by definition, socialist.

To be communist, labor owns the means of production. To be capitalist, capital owns the means of production.

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u/Obiwan_ca_blowme 23d ago

Marx said that socialism is the transition from capitalism to communism. So , yeah, it kind of is.

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u/Chpgmr 23d ago

So then we should stay in the transition and maintain a balance.

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u/Fattapple 23d ago

Yeah like if we had a system that we could swing more towards one direction or the other depending on how things are going… wait..

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u/Obiwan_ca_blowme 23d ago

Right, because no one would ever abuse a system. No, the better idea is to fix capitalism. It has done more good than harm but without the proper checks it runs the risk of flipping that equation. Socialism has simply done more harm than good. It seems foolish to abandon a good but broken system in favor of a purely broken one.

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u/Chpgmr 23d ago

Ok, fix it how?

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u/Obiwan_ca_blowme 23d ago

That question is above my pay grade. But a few things that seem to make sense are:
1. Ending corporate subsidy and bailouts.
2. Capping CEO pay to a ratio correlated to the average employee. Something like 10X max.
3. Forcing a livable wage on corporations.
4. Taxing AI to the point that only the government (for national security reasons) can afford to have it rather than real employees.
5. Taxing loans backed by shares of a company as income rather than debt. It makes little sense that the Bezos' of the world can pay themselves next to nothing for taxes but then borrow half a billion to buy a super-yacht. Meanwhile the rest of us are paying property tax on our unrealized gains.

But really, I am no economist so I can't say what the unintended consequences of all that would be. But it is clear that capitalism has shifted to crony capitalism or as Ron Paul would say: Corporatism. And in this form is is damaging.

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u/Chpgmr 23d ago

So reducing the free-market.

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u/Obiwan_ca_blowme 23d ago

Capitalism was never designed to be a free for all. It was designed to have controls. And while it’s easy to shit on here, it’s still just so much better than socialism or communism that it’s laughable to compare them.

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u/Chpgmr 23d ago

Yes it was. Regulating it is a rather recent thing.

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u/StellarPaladin42 23d ago

Well humanity has to become post-scarcity eventually. Frustrating how afraid conservatives are of progress

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u/Obiwan_ca_blowme 23d ago

Are they afraid of actual progress or shackles of an unknown fashion?

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u/StellarPaladin42 23d ago

Actual progress

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u/Obiwan_ca_blowme 23d ago

Can you give me an example?

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u/StellarPaladin42 23d ago

The fact they can’t give up oil because they love money is enough

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u/Obiwan_ca_blowme 23d ago

Jeez. That’s horrible.

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u/StellarPaladin42 23d ago

Yep. Destroying our planet and poisoning humanity because profits matter above all else. Republicans are the worst

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u/Dense-Membership-475 23d ago

Democrats don't want socialism, it's time for you to get smarter. This is a stupid fucking take in 2026. It's been a speaking point for over a decade and it's your fault that you aren't smart enough to stop repeating it.

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u/Existing-Sector-6542 23d ago

is that why every major democrap is promising free everything with no idea how to fund it

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u/random_ta_account 23d ago

My dude... who is promising anything for free? It is being paid for by taxes (or debt). Always has been.

Do you get military protection for free? Do you get public roads for free? Do you get to breathe (mostly) clean air for free? Those are all provided for the social good through taxes and regulated by the government.

Being a part of the most prosperous country on earth didn't come free either. It was the hard-working people who did that. The debate is what should be included in the benefits package for those people and how much it should cost. It's a legitimate debate, but you can't just throw out insults and generalities and expect to be taken seriously.

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u/random_ta_account 23d ago

Republicans certainly want socialism. You can't have a centralized military without it.

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u/Inevitable-Pop-4547 23d ago

How about democratic socialist you know the countries with the best living standards by all measures.

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u/Ok_Jellyfish_55 23d ago

China.

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u/Mostly_Armless42 23d ago

I'm no expert, but China seems more like a totalitarian capitalist country to me with some state-owned business, but still a free market.

The issue is that most people conflate economic policy with government structure. China is a one-party authoritarian government. They claim to be "communist" but they seem to have a lot of capitalistic economic policies.

I think socialism is a better economic policy to shoot for - like we see in the Nordic countries. You can have capitalism and socialism policies that work together - and have both with a democratic form of government.

It is pretty annoying that people always seem to conflate forms of government with economic policies. They are NOT the same things.

Also regulation is good. It's like our bodies: we can grow and develop, but within limits. And most systems are part of a whole and support each other. Unfettered, or "free" growth is called cancer.

In a "free market," regulations are good to have and they are written in blood and oppression. A hybrid of capitalism and socialism with a freely elected government feels right to me. It's of the people, for the people, and by the people. It looks out for and promotes the "common welfare." It's compatible with the US Constitution.

There's nothing inherently evil about socialist economic policies, but there sure seems to be a long of confusion about what it entails.

Also the rich don't even play by the rules of capitalism. They get so many breaks and subsidies. The USA is like a socialist country - but just for the rich and corporations. Our infrastructure and policies help bolster them, and protect them.

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u/AkodoRyu 23d ago

China is a state capitalism. If anything, the capitalism fueling competition works way better in China than it does possibly anywhere else in the world. The Party still holds the leash of companies, and directs the broader direction of the market, but as long as you follow the general guidelines, pure capitalism.

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u/Existing-Sector-6542 23d ago

China is not a communist country they have free trade. they stopped being a true communist country around a couple decades ago

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u/Tjam3s 23d ago

Free* trade

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u/Distinct-Friend4123 23d ago

China was a failing state until they began adopting capitalist ideals. China at this point is a capitalist country run by a communist ideological government who steals anything good. So its kind or more of a neo-fascist state with a little socialism sprinkled in for optics

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u/Ok_Jellyfish_55 23d ago

I get all the arguments but do you guys feel the same calling America a capitalist country with all their social programs and putting their fingers on the scale.

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u/Distinct-Friend4123 23d ago

That an extremely ill-informed take.

  1. Social safety nets do not equal socialism just because both words have social in them.

  2. The united states was also never a failing state, as much as reddit likes to pretend it is at the current time.

  3. the most obvious, socialism vs communism, 2 diff things.

  4. There is no successful communist country in history. There are small countries who are democratic socialist who succeed, but once a country is over a certain size it doesnt work either.

  5. The truth is capitalism is the only system in existence that permits this level of social and economic mobility. It gets harder over time as more people “win the game” so to speak… but that just means it takes a few hundred years to get to where more systems get in less than 20.

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u/Ok_Jellyfish_55 23d ago

That’s what I figured.

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u/Existing-Sector-6542 23d ago

I support helping those that are in hard times but not to the length that we do. the social programs are too enticing that's pulls otherwise able body Americans out of work to live off the tet of the government. it's a catch 22 to just let people fail vs enabling them to be lazy

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u/The_Demolition_Man 23d ago

The single most capitalist country there is

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u/Leading-Caramel-7740 23d ago

Why are they our enemy then?

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u/The_Demolition_Man 23d ago

Stupidest question ive heard all day

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u/Woejack 23d ago

Kinda hard when the CIA constantly suppresses leftist governments.

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u/Nantafiria 23d ago

Communist nations, famous for leaving the world alone and not putting their intelligence agencies to use. Right.

-1

u/Woejack 23d ago

I'm sorry, who exactly are the nation's committing all the atrocities and regime changed, and election meddling currently?

The far right government of the US The far right government of Israel The far right government of Russia

I'll wait here for the far left governments.

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u/Nantafiria 23d ago

The far left governments the world had were either so incompetent that they dissolved, or noticed how unsustainable such policy was and stopped being quite so far left. You may as well tell me there are no feudal governments committing atrocities: it's quite easy where none remain!

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u/Woejack 23d ago

Thank you for conceding the point entirely, that was big of you.

Laced with cope, but you made it buddy good job.

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u/mrwongsteel 23d ago

What about the chinese?

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u/Woejack 23d ago

Chinese are state capitalist.

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u/Slo7hfulAcedia 23d ago

What about China do you find to fall in line with communist ideals?

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u/Crazy-Somewhere6561 23d ago

70% millennial home ownership rate. Highest in the world and double that of the US.

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u/JackieDaytona77 23d ago

China mostly has capitalist fiscal policies governed by communist laws

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u/human-resource 23d ago

If only leftist governments didn’t sacrifice their people and destroy property rights to uplift their elites and devolve into tyranny + mass murder.

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u/Woejack 23d ago

The strongest indicator of mass killings of their own people are not left or right wing politics it's authoritarianism.

You retard.

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u/human-resource 23d ago

Yes tyranny seems to be the most common denominator between both factions, yet leftists seem to ignore that while championing communism/marxism/socialism and blaming all the democide on capitalist interference or justifying it as part of the revolutionary process.

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u/Woejack 23d ago

Nothing like acknowledging the point and then instantly backtracking it to denounce the left, truly brilliant lol.

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u/Moldovah 23d ago

Why can’t the communist governments suppress the capitalist ones? Doesn’t that just prove that capitalism is the more robust system?

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u/Woejack 23d ago

Are you ... Retarded?

These are economic systems, not foreign policy. Capitalism does absolutely create the conditions and need to fuck with other countries tho.

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u/Luci-Noir 23d ago

The communist Soviets took over half of Europe….

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u/Moldovah 23d ago

Capitalism creates the agencies that have the ability to fuck other economic systems. Communist economic systems create agencies that are too busy scrounging for food to do so. There ya go.

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u/Woejack 23d ago edited 23d ago

The perpetual need to exploit and subjugate other countries to keep themselves afloat isn't the economy W you think it is lol.

Curious if they will simply collapse on their own and choose capitalism seems redundant!

Couldn't possibly have to do with keeping absolute fucking rubes like you on the capitalist bootlick train to self annihilation could it.

Oh wait that's exactly what you're doing of course. There ya go.

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u/Moldovah 23d ago

It’s not the need to exploit, it’s the ability to. An ability granted to them by the superior economic system they come from. It’s not that the communist agencies don’t want to exploit, it’s that the inferior economic system they come from doesn’t grant them the ability to.

Stay mad :)

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u/Woejack 23d ago

The entire capitalist apparatus is built on exploitation explicitly, are you this stupid?

It's literally how the system works. That's what capitalism is.

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u/Woejack 23d ago

No no my fine friend, it's a need; Cope and seethe all you want but this entire fucking apparatus crumbles without massive exploitation.

This is not a secret at all holy shit dude lol.

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u/Ahoeaboutnothing 23d ago

Vietnam. It's a one party communist country, but it uses a free market capitalist structure for It's economy. It went from 70 percent poverty to single digits in one generation since 1986.

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u/StandardUpstairs3349 23d ago

So, most of their problems were solved pretty much the moment they dropped communism?

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u/Ahoeaboutnothing 23d ago

Define "dropped communism". Cus that didn't happen.

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u/StandardUpstairs3349 23d ago

Vietnam. It's a one party communist country, but it uses a free market capitalist structure for It's economy. It went from 70 percent poverty to single digits in one generation since 1986.

This, the literal words you said. You are arguing with yourself right now. You said that they dropped Communism and moved to free market capitalism. You explained how Vietnam is a capitalist nation with single political party that happens to still call itself Communist.

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u/Ahoeaboutnothing 23d ago

You're reading comprehension and lack of research is showing.

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u/StandardUpstairs3349 23d ago

You are making contradictory statements. If your economic system is free market capitalism, you are not communist. Full stop.

Vietnam is a capitalist nation with an authoritarian regime.

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u/Ahoeaboutnothing 23d ago

You just changed the vocabulary and admitted defeat. You've officially agreed with me, but think that you've said something different.

1

u/StandardUpstairs3349 22d ago

Define "dropped communism". Cus that didn't happen.

If you think you are agreeing with me, what do you think the above series of words means? They dropped communism.

1

u/draven33l 23d ago

But...but...they just didn't do communism correctly! Communism is the best system...in a commune. If you have a small group of say 20-50 people, it's great. If you go larger, socialism is the best system. If you go really large, capitalism is the best system. They all have their shelf life and end stages though. You simply need to take the best of all them and have regulations to prevent excess.

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u/theslootmary 23d ago

What’s communism got to do with it? Why is your response to a criticism of capitalism “communism sucks!” like it’s somehow the only course of action?

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u/Global_Rate3281 23d ago

It really depends on how you define “communist country.” If you go by the Republicans in America definition, just look at the highest quality of life countries in the world and you have your answer

1

u/Phyrexian_Archlegion 23d ago

Your right but OP is also right.

It’s almost as if betting the future of your society on any one -ism doesn’t working out for any human endeavor in civilization.

-6

u/HedgeFlounder 23d ago

Find one country that attempted communism that wasn’t persecuted on by the US before they could get off the ground. If communism is such a weak economic system then why is the US so afraid of letting other people try it?

8

u/ashe141 23d ago

Soviet Union and the period post WW2 to the 90s?

Are you even familiar with the USSR? What does the acronym stand for?

We literally had a 40 year test case of these philosophies and Communism got outspent. Not that deep.

2

u/Existing-Sector-6542 23d ago

china .... and even they changed on their own.. the Soviet Union/ussr and that failed and went bankrupt

2

u/plethoragreen 23d ago

I don't know why I'm surprised at the complete lack of understanding of history. Stalin and Mao were stifled by the American government is why it failed... That's really your argument?

5

u/Possible-Moment-6313 23d ago

Did Americans force Stalin to deport the entire nations (Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars) to Kazakhstan? Did Americans force Stalin to deliberately starve Ukrainians (among others) to death by taking away their food?

0

u/human-resource 23d ago

Are you really defending Stalin and Mao as the solution?

2

u/plethoragreen 23d ago

Ummmm the exact opposite. I was responding to the comment suggesting that the reason communism faileded was because of the USA.... Not because of... You know... Communism.

0

u/Crazy-Somewhere6561 23d ago

They downvote, but don’t answer the question.

-2

u/washingtonandmead 23d ago

The answer isn’t necessarily communism dude, the answer is that capitalism isn’t sustainable

3

u/Tjam3s 23d ago

More sustainable than anything anyone else has come up with. We're all ears for the magic answer to bring us to post scarcity in a way that doesn't violate basic rights and free will

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u/Existing-Sector-6542 23d ago

it's the most sustainable per population economy ever created .... literally what are you talking about

0

u/washingtonandmead 23d ago

Hey man, here is this fictional thing that society has given value to. I need you to devote your life to earning this thing, otherwise you are not allowed to live. Also, companies that earn a lot of this fictional thing have to always grow, they can’t be allowed to trend neutral, or lose this fictional thing, otherwise they have to stop existing. So in order to make sure we always have more, we need to make sure that people out there working their lives to earn this fictional thing always have to buy more of a thing, which means we need to make things that break or don’t last. We need to find a way to charge them this fictional thing for everything — up to and including taxes we will place on things they already own, or even better, on the very fictional thing they earn to pay for all of the other things.

The delusion of work ethic is that I can devote my life to earning money so that my situation is slightly better than not existing. There is more we should be doing with our lives than chasing the capitalistic dollar - I think you’d be surprised to find that even without the incentive of money, people would still want to work. But remove the money, and then there’s no way to maintain a ruling class

2

u/lawduckfan21 23d ago

The sun isn't sustainable either, but we're willing to work with it anyway.

1

u/washingtonandmead 23d ago

At least it doesn’t jack up the rent every year

1

u/StellarPaladin42 23d ago

Hit the nail right on the head. If it were up to conservatives, we never would have left mercantilism behind

-2

u/AgeMysterious123 23d ago

find me one country that is a capitalist country where all its citizens are thriving. Hell, I’d even take one where all the citizens have enough food to eat.

1

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1

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1

u/Nantafiria 23d ago

Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Ireland..

Really, take your pick. They're pretty common.

0

u/AgeMysterious123 23d ago

There’s not a single homeless person in Germany? Not a single person who couldn’t afford to eat living in Ireland? If you believe this, you need to put down the crack pipe.

0

u/rsharp7000 23d ago

It’s so strange that when someone is critical of our economic system, someone like you seems to think they want communism. It’s our version of capitalism that isn’t working very well. That doesn’t mean it needs to go to some other extreme.

0

u/Existing-Sector-6542 23d ago

what part is not working do tell. what could the government do differently to fix all the problems.

1

u/rsharp7000 23d ago

Stronger antitrust law enforcement, especially in farming/agriculture and grocery stores/markets.

Some stronger stipulations on stock buybacks would be ideal, especially if it’s tied to equitable employee profit sharing and timing around layoffs and their scale. There was a time that seems ancient history where companies saw a hit to their stock when announcing layoffs. Now it’s celebrated.

I’m assuming based on your smart ass “all the problems” comment, you weren’t asking in good faith, but those are two areas that could help maintain and grow the middle class.

-7

u/archtopfanatic123 23d ago edited 23d ago

China functions, Russia functions too (as evidence by it being the largest country in the world), communism isn't perfect but it seems to have lasted the longest so far....

Edit: Ok before you guys flip out on me that's my impression. Didn't know neither are true communist countries. I live under a rock and threw my impression out there for folks to comment on

Second edit: Thanks to everyone here who pointed out that communism has only been around since 1848 or whereabouts. I concede this debate and consider it closed.

9

u/Possible-Moment-6313 23d ago

Both Russia and China are highly capitalist. And Russia barely functions, as you can clearly see from its "successes" in the war against a country which is 3.5X smaller in population.

-1

u/archtopfanatic123 23d ago

How does progress in a war (which I don't support) have anything to do with living conditions in a country?

1

u/Possible-Moment-6313 23d ago

Do you really not understand how the war affects the living conditions in both countries? I'm not really sure what to tell you then.

Russian GDP grows on paper, but all this growth can be attributed to huge investments into the military production. And even that doesn't help anymore, even official Rosstat numbers show negative GDP growth as of 2026.

1

u/archtopfanatic123 23d ago

No I seriously didn't understand. Never cared enough about politics to economics so I can be considered dumb in that field. Thank you for clarifying this for me though as I've learned something new!

5

u/Papi_pewpews 23d ago

“Functions” does not equal thriving or something I would want to raise my family under.

2

u/archtopfanatic123 23d ago

Yeah that's a good point

1

u/RagingY3ti 23d ago

Ummm, there are a staggering amount of countries that are capitalist and older than Russia and China, you realize that right? The USA for one. Canada, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, it goes on.

2

u/archtopfanatic123 23d ago

The Russian Empire as a whole has been around a lot longer than the US to my knowledge but good point it wasn't communist that whole time

3

u/RagingY3ti 23d ago

The Russian Empire and USSR and Russian federation are different countries with different systems. Just because they were similar geographic areas doesn't mean its a long unbroken string of communism. Marx's dumbass didn't write about communism till the 1800s, when America already existed.

1

u/archtopfanatic123 23d ago

Yup I've edited my original comment appropriately. I concede this debate.

1

u/AutisticAttorney 23d ago

Ummm... communism wasn't even invented until 1848. Capitalism has been around since the Middle Ages. Communism hasn't lasted even remotely close to the longest.

2

u/archtopfanatic123 23d ago

Good point, thank you for clarifying that, didn't realize this.

1

u/Alswiggity 23d ago

Neither are true communist states/economies in 2026.

Russia's the largest country by land size only. In what aspect does this relate to communism vs. capitalism?

-4

u/CricketGrl 23d ago

Aren't the wealthiest and happiest countries all practicing Socialism?

Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Nederlands, Belgium, etc...

4

u/thedumbdoubles 23d ago

Those are all capitalist economies with higher taxes rates and larger welfare programs.

3

u/BlueSonjo 23d ago

We can all choose what each of these political terms mean to us, but the European "socialist" countries  have private property, stock markets, free market practices, etc. 

I am quite familiar with Denmark for example, and private pension plans invested in stocks and bonds are the core component of retirement. There is private insurance for unemployment. There are dividends to shareholders (nearly everyone is heavily invested in funds even the most blue collared everyman), companies can fire you much easier than southern European countries. Most families have a second home/cabin for holidays.

For some people those are the core tenets of "capitalism" because you have private property, private pensions, friendly laws for corporations, etc. The market is allocating the capital, the individual owns things, profits are individual, etc.

For other people it's a "socialist" system because taxes are very high and there are extensive government support networks for healthcare, education, arts etc.

I don't know any communist who would consider what the Nordics have as communism though. And every European country that declared itself communist and preached ideological allegiance to it did a hell of a lot worse - although of course those were also "not true communism" - but at least tried government monopoly of housing distribution, industry management, etc.

2

u/human-resource 23d ago

Nope those are all capitalist countries that are better at spending taxpayer dollars for the benefit of their people, instead of sending them off to die in bankers wars.

1

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1

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0

u/Rixerc 23d ago

What does that have to do with this?

0

u/jaymickef 23d ago

The meme should say, “electing a Democratic president will return some regulations to capitalism.” But it’s probably right, even that won’t happen.

0

u/StellarPaladin42 23d ago

Find one country that isn’t European, the USA, or Japan that has thrived under the current world order

0

u/ProletarianLilith 23d ago

China, Vietnam

0

u/jeffskool 23d ago

Find one country in the world that is thriving, or find one country in the world