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This is a good way to think about it. I've also been trying my hand at being a bit nicer to tankies. Oops... I mean communists.
They'll come around, eventually. (Tankies I mean)
So, I'm finding things reversed, I spent most of my time on reddit going at it with idiot conservatives, just blasting through their talking points and not being polite at all.
Tankies are different because they ... it's not selfishness, it's not just seeing themselves as the ultimate victim of "evil libruls!", they really believe the world would be better under their fairy tale. It's even different from a lot of religious nutjobs I've met, who can't wait for their God to come back and burn everyone who didn't appreciate how awesome they specifically were, like their dad who worked at the CIA doing Kung-Fu.
Fortunately the tankies have weak arguments, the best of which is "China #1 now!!!".
I'll just come out and say it: there is an enormous difference between a communist and a "tanky". For one, only one of those actually believes in communism, and for another one of them is capable of rational discussion without resorting to the "your (sic) stoopid (sp), nuh uh YOU are!" schtick. I have found it more protective of my sanity to block the other type.
Hmm I don't know which communists you're debating on here but there are quite a few who i can say have made me reconsider my position enough times. I don't know whether that's because of how good they are at debating or how inherently strong their points are but i would be inclined to assume the latter. Maybe you're just arguing with the blabbermouthed "cAPitALism Bad" folks
Some are just 'west bad! China good!', the last one was actually trying but I'd read Das capital and simply felt base Marxism was hopelessly outdated as a darwinism era construct social model, obsoleted by game theory and other more modern behavioral frameworks.
I'm a moderate centrist on most issues, I think we need more social support systems to counter balance the power of corporations and the rich, I just understand a powerful government isn't a panacea, you're just shifting the power and therefore corruption to a different body.
Have you read Consequences of Capitalism by Noam Chomsky and Marv Waterstone?
No, I'm sure chomsky would be great.
I don't disagree with the criticism that we have far too unregulated capitalism, we need to go way back the other way.
My issue is the stupid, faith-based, communism will solve everything, even though it never has before.
Capitalism is corruption by the rich, communism devolves into corruption by the powerful, always.
In the past the people only had freedom when the king and the nobles checked each other in power, which is why the founders created checks and balances. Now the king has been replaced by the government while the nobility are the rich and corporations.
If both are balanced against each other (which has happened a few times in the past) then we have increased freedoms, often because they have to lobby the people in their struggle with each other.
When they join forces, we have fascism, which is when things are the worst. That's where we're going now with our current system. That's a problem.
The book does discuss a bunch of these topics, especially the history between capital business interests and the US government.
I think communism gets too muddy with everyone's different idea of what it is, especially do to all the different countries that have 'tried communism' to various degrees of success. I think socialism is more tangible to talk about. Changing the structure of businesses to a democratic organization between the workers, where the profit they generate goes to where is democraticly decided (such as fair wages vs reinvestment into the business). Changing the social organization of society would be revolutionary, as it at odds with the profit motive of capital interests
I'm far more open to movement in that direction as a counter balance to concentrated power. Not that it can't concentrate that way (ambition + charisma finds a way), but you need something.
It's the blind 'communists' who operate on pure faith that everything we tried before will work this time, in complete defiance of human nature.