If someone wishes to do no harm to anybody else, but neither do they wish to engage in altruistic activities, are they morally obligated to engage in altruism?
There are every day consequences of the capitalist system that are immoral. Countries with slavery, young children mining gold by hand in debt bondage, families that live in brick kilns in Pakistan, all kinds of stuff like that is a direct result of the capitalist system that pushes profit above everything else. You can back up to more macro issues too like people living without a home or the dignity of a decent job.
There should be an understanding that we all live in a society and have a duty towards the society itself. It is moral to care that the people who grow my food or build or clean my streets can afford to buy their kids toys for Christmas or just live a dignified life.
Yes, it is moral to force altruism because we are not some hermits living in the woods. Why would you not want this? Aren't you benefitting from their labor? Why do you think you, a worker, has to be the one who bears the brunt of this cost alone?
Capital can and should pay. Capital exists in a socialist state. It just works to serve the people, not the other way around.
Besides, the altruism argument is a stupid one and may point to social democracies as a solution to unhinged capitalism.
Socialism and communism are about one thing only: workers being paid fairly for their labor based on the value they produce. Why bring up altruism? No socialist or trade unionist is looking for handouts or forced altruism. Just fair pay for work done and value produced..
I become a communist because I dont like working. I feel if we just seized all the rich peoples houses and divided them up equally we wouldnt have too. We allow migrants to earn their citizenship by working the fields, stores, manufactoring etc..... They can earn their citizenship after 10 years. And we bring them in as we need new labor.
Under capitalism my country has been either a feudal backwater or a corrupt kleptocracy.
Under communism it became a global superpower and had the greatest education system on the planet, eliminated homelessness, eliminated joblessness, lifted millions out of poverty, and had an objectively positive impact on the standard of life of all those it got involved with, both internally and externally.
Russia, but it applies to any of the USSR’s constituent republics. Every single one of them was better off for their time under communism, despite what many nationalists/historical revisionists would like to tell you.
Were there repressions? Sure, but such are necessary when counterrevolution is always a risk, but the pace at which actual, genuine technological, architectural, industrial, infrastructural, scientific, and societal progress and development were made was and still is unprecedented.
Material conditions. Was born into a piss poor hard working family and asked myself why they have to work so hard without being the richest people on earth.
In 2004 I was 9 years old and I was voting in my mock election at my school. This kid who was a member of an old small-town money family said "i am voting for George Bush because he will make things easier for rich people like me."
Prior to this, I had assumed most people had the same ideas about caring for the poor as i did. It never occurred to me prior to that that people with money would be self-serving in that way. It was in that moment that I developed class consciousness, and the rest was a matter of my theoretical understanding catching up with my unshakable notion that working people need to do for working people in the same selfish fashion as monied people do for monied people
I've lived in shitty trailer parks seeing people struggle through 3 jobs just to survive, and I've lived in mansions where they might only work a couple days per week and made hundreds of thousands of dollars. Having lived on both ends of the spectrum and seeing the disparity first hand really makes you realize just how inequal the system is
I started reading books. In the run up to the 2016 election trump kept talking about antifa. I didn’t know what he was talking about so I did a little googling and found Mark Bray’s Antifa Handbook which is actually a history book on Antifa. That was a huge eye opener and that led me to Michael Parenti’s blackshirts and reds. I can’t recommend that book enough. Howard Zinn’s book history of the United States is a good primer for both of those books too. After that I dived into theory and read a bunch of Marxs, Engels, and a bunch of stuff recommended by the black socialists of America. I started a book club and have not stop absorbing everything i come into contact with.
Fifth grade learning about “to each according to their need, from each according to their ability.” I always thought it made sense. I was still hugely liberalized until I started reading theory but I’ve known that life is unfair since I was ten.
i basically never left that mindset of “everybody should have what they need to survive” that a lot of kids have and then over time it was a matter of learning what that really meant as a fleshed out concept and an ideology.
grew up conservative christian, and as i got older and saw how racist/opressive their proposed policies were i leaned left. Oct 7th was the big awakening moment for me. Started reading history and leftist literature after that to understand the dynamics and that formed a lot of my now-held political beliefs
I used to be something between conservative and liberal before I got more into politics and historical background. I started reading books and talking to people, that’s how I first crossed socialism/communism. Over time and after more research and reading I became a communist myself.
It wasn’t a certain life experience or argument, it just started to make sense while I was learning about it
I downloaded the punk rock starter pack when I was 14 in 1987, and communism was included. Over time, nothing else compared. That's how I got atheism, too.
When I learned to look at the homeless and destitute with empathy rather than disgust. Being raised in a conservative household, it was instilled in us that we don't look in the direction of homeless and to see them a drug addicts that just couldn't pull themselves up by their bootstraps. The world is not as fair as people make it out to be.
i think when it became clear that political freedom was pointless without economic freedom. like, what is the point of doing all the hard, political work of getting marijuana legalized when your boss can fire you for failing a piss test on Monday morning? capitalist organizations are the most authoritarian institutions on the planet but most of us are forced to surrender to their authority or do without food, clothing, shelter, or healthcare.
I grew up in a conservative household. So i grew up regarding Capitalism as good and being slightly racist. At the age of 30 i was fed up with work and decided to cycle around the world. It took me three years and many experiences and discussions with people in countries like Mexico and Brazil to see through the propaganda. Once I did...
This is why i always try to have empathy towards conservatives. It took so much for me to lose all my beliefs. Im sure its difficult for many people. And i grew up before the internet. The amounts of propaganda conservatives get is insane
Noticed that business owners don’t put in the hours or hard labor that workers do, but had the big house and nice truck/car/etc.
Read history books, learned about how places like Sweden operate, found out Cuba teaches it’s citizens to read better than the USA… read about early labor struggles and Pinkertons… saw the USSR fail and China reverse course on what had been a small hopeful moment of “truthieness”, further informing my disgust at authoritarians for ruining everything, always, in all systems.
Read our two major party platforms and voting/legislative choices. GOP by the ‘80s was already airing racist advertisements nationwide, so screw those guys. Democrats weren’t better on caping military spending or pushing for social programs, so I found a party called “Peace and Freedom Party” whose platform matched my ideals, and never looked back.
We won’t see real socialist policies in the USA in my lifetime, unless people can stop pushing fantasies and work with other humans around them.
The ACP guys who infest this place… they’re just MAGA assholes working the grift, a splinter group of a splinter group that doesn’t have the political power found in Bernie’s left toe. Ignore them. We are probably making a mistake giving this sub air.
Edit to add: communism is a fairly extreme form of socialism, and the ACP guys who seem to run this sub seek to conflate the two things, for propaganda purposes. I would need some convincing that communism can be done without socially destructive use of authoritarianism that just puts power in the hands of a different small group, at this point. I support socialism, not communism per se. The goal is to raise up and empower the workers, I feel like people lose that focus too easily when using dogmatic labels and getting pedantic about their ideal utopia that will never be achieved.
The more I learned about life as an adult the more I aligned with food, clothing, shelter to be a human right and not a commodity. And that people should be working to their own ability. If they want to work more to get more luxury by all means. But my values only align pretty far left.
Well when I first heard about "commies" in highschool and how communism is bad and then i read about it, well its not bad. Also love worldbuilding so I researched all the different economic and political systems. Now im a commie.
I'm not a exactly a Socialist/Communist by your metrics.
However I probably became much more sympathetic to the ACPs views due to the following:
1, Alan Greenspan using the Fed the bailout Long Term Capital Management in 1998 and ushering in the era of guaranteed bailouts and Moral Hazard for those who have financialized the global economy.
2, The US refusing to dial down the size of it's military after winning the Cold War; squandering the Peace Dividend and going full Neo-Cuck for the ultra right wing Zionists.
3, The US and the Western Powers could have done a lot in the 1990s to make the world a better place but instead they went full Wokism, Gender Bender, Neo-Libtard and/or Neo-Cuck for the MIC, Banksters and Mega Corporations.
4, Seeing China actually get things done.
5, The Baby Boomers consuming everything like a Cancer.
6, President Slick Willie allowing the US Congress to dismantle the Glass-Stegall Act. Also #1 to #3 happened under his watch.
7, Seeing Canada decay because the ruling elites and the Latte Leftist of the 416/905 area decided to just be parasites who are sucking off the oil and gas wealth of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Newfoundland.
8, Seeing morons, especially the woke fungus and the other sissy Latte Liberals, who thought that destroying the White Male Unionized working class was an act of liberation when in reality it actually they destroyed a major support pillar of democracy and helped to enrich MNCs and Banksters.
9, 2008 Bailouts...
10, The endless Regime Change Wars.
11, People cheering on Bandarist Nazi scum. I can't believe that the Canadian town I grew up had a freaking Nazi memorial.
12, The Banksters and Big Tech being able to do everything, anything, everywhere at once with no constraints.
13, Big Tech Media Censorship.
14, CIA, MI6, Mossad...can someone tell me what is the difference between them in 2025 versus say the Gestapo or Stalin's NKVD?
15, Complete collapse of any sense of Professional Pride, esprit de corps, Profession autonomy and control within any of the Professions or Trades. Just look at how the teachers are being f-ed up. Look at how the Alberta Teacher's strike ended...
When I realized that there's no need or moral justification for billionaires to exist.
When I realized that demanding everyone equal access to healthcare, clean water, food, education, culture and housing isn't as "radical" as I'd been led to believe before.
When I realized that the anti-immigrant/ultranationalist drum the right-wing populists keep beating is a way to keep masses disunited and distracted from actually relevant societal issues.
When I realized that I have a lot more in common with my local Turkish barber just trying to make a living in this failing economy than Elon Musk.
When I realized that capitalism is a self-devouring snake that requires constant exploitation and wars of imperialism to sustain itself and that its obsessions with endless economic growth and endless exploitation of new and new natural resources have no real endgame.
Even if both systems are flawed, I'd rather back the one that at least tries to encourage our better angels, instead of 'greed is human nature and basically all we are, so don't even try to be better'.
Grew up in a liberal household to parents who worked in unions or government. Both made decent money and had job security, good benefits, lots of vacation days that they used to spend time with us, and have now retired with full pensions and benefits that will support them through retirement.
I studied economics and then law, have been a lifelong student of history and politics, and the more I experience life under capitalism and working in corporate environments with none of the privileges my parents had through their work, the more it infuriates me that we don’t all have what they had, particularly when it’s so achievable. How much better would life be!
Socialist policies work where they’ve been implemented, and are evidence based. Market-based solutions for everything but consumer goods have proven to be pretty terrible, and the impacts of unrestrained consumerism on the planet are devastating. We’re watching China’s long-term planning paying off with incredible infrastructure projects like high speed rail and renewable energy. Meanwhile, America’s structural impediments for long term planning have resulted in crumbling public infrastructure while AI hype drives a multi-TRILLION dollar infrastructure buildout on an unproven technology whose business case is suspect at best.
Like how people still defend capitalism at this point is beyond me. It’s manifestly broken and people just can’t imagine an alternative.
Healthcare and not growing up with any because my parents were self-employed. While, I thankfully turned out ok and my parents never had any big health scares. Also, once I studied econ as a grad degree did I just realize what a load of shit this whole system was built on plenty of assumptions but it was to keep the status quo.
The moral side of socialism. Capitalism is immoral.
If someone wishes to do no harm to anybody else, but neither do they wish to engage in altruistic activities, are they morally obligated to engage in altruism?
There are every day consequences of the capitalist system that are immoral. Countries with slavery, young children mining gold by hand in debt bondage, families that live in brick kilns in Pakistan, all kinds of stuff like that is a direct result of the capitalist system that pushes profit above everything else. You can back up to more macro issues too like people living without a home or the dignity of a decent job.
What’s your definition of capitalism again
I'm an agnostic.
It's not about altrtuism per ce.
In capitalism everybody are victims: oppressed and oppressors both.
But you said capitalism is immoral, and socialism is moral. My question was if compelled altruism was moral. Is it?
You said altruism per se is not what it’s about. I’m guessing you mean socialism isn’t about altruism, which is a bit of a strange statement to me.
If altruism is not a substantial principle in socialism, what is the moral principle you’re relying on to say socialism is moral?
There should be an understanding that we all live in a society and have a duty towards the society itself. It is moral to care that the people who grow my food or build or clean my streets can afford to buy their kids toys for Christmas or just live a dignified life.
Yes, it is moral to force altruism because we are not some hermits living in the woods. Why would you not want this? Aren't you benefitting from their labor? Why do you think you, a worker, has to be the one who bears the brunt of this cost alone?
Capital can and should pay. Capital exists in a socialist state. It just works to serve the people, not the other way around.
Besides, the altruism argument is a stupid one and may point to social democracies as a solution to unhinged capitalism.
Socialism and communism are about one thing only: workers being paid fairly for their labor based on the value they produce. Why bring up altruism? No socialist or trade unionist is looking for handouts or forced altruism. Just fair pay for work done and value produced..
I become a communist because I dont like working. I feel if we just seized all the rich peoples houses and divided them up equally we wouldnt have too. We allow migrants to earn their citizenship by working the fields, stores, manufactoring etc..... They can earn their citizenship after 10 years. And we bring them in as we need new labor.
You are a perfet example of why lots of people dislike the idea of comunism
Communism bring indepedence to my country
Under capitalism my country has been either a feudal backwater or a corrupt kleptocracy.
Under communism it became a global superpower and had the greatest education system on the planet, eliminated homelessness, eliminated joblessness, lifted millions out of poverty, and had an objectively positive impact on the standard of life of all those it got involved with, both internally and externally.
What the hell country is that
Russia, but it applies to any of the USSR’s constituent republics. Every single one of them was better off for their time under communism, despite what many nationalists/historical revisionists would like to tell you.
Were there repressions? Sure, but such are necessary when counterrevolution is always a risk, but the pace at which actual, genuine technological, architectural, industrial, infrastructural, scientific, and societal progress and development were made was and still is unprecedented.
Yeah I get ya. Tens of millions of people were killed in the process tho
Tens of millions of people are killed under and for capitalism, what's your point?
Tens of millions got killed by Germany when they made an unprovoked invasion against a country they had a non-aggression pact with, you mean.
The genocides are okay because it wasn't actually communism lol
It was communism, and it was great.
Material conditions. Was born into a piss poor hard working family and asked myself why they have to work so hard without being the richest people on earth.
Arguments obviously. It's not a religion.
Always been left economically then when I heard the utopian leftist economic systems I explored further.
0: The obscene failure of capitalism made me anti system
1: Reading Che Guevara's biography inspired me to action
2: Reading and discussing Marxist authors with others solidified my previously vague thoughts and beliefs.
Very interesting path.
In 2004 I was 9 years old and I was voting in my mock election at my school. This kid who was a member of an old small-town money family said "i am voting for George Bush because he will make things easier for rich people like me." Prior to this, I had assumed most people had the same ideas about caring for the poor as i did. It never occurred to me prior to that that people with money would be self-serving in that way. It was in that moment that I developed class consciousness, and the rest was a matter of my theoretical understanding catching up with my unshakable notion that working people need to do for working people in the same selfish fashion as monied people do for monied people
I've lived in shitty trailer parks seeing people struggle through 3 jobs just to survive, and I've lived in mansions where they might only work a couple days per week and made hundreds of thousands of dollars. Having lived on both ends of the spectrum and seeing the disparity first hand really makes you realize just how inequal the system is
I started reading books. In the run up to the 2016 election trump kept talking about antifa. I didn’t know what he was talking about so I did a little googling and found Mark Bray’s Antifa Handbook which is actually a history book on Antifa. That was a huge eye opener and that led me to Michael Parenti’s blackshirts and reds. I can’t recommend that book enough. Howard Zinn’s book history of the United States is a good primer for both of those books too. After that I dived into theory and read a bunch of Marxs, Engels, and a bunch of stuff recommended by the black socialists of America. I started a book club and have not stop absorbing everything i come into contact with.
Almost falling down the alt right pipeline until I heard all the racist stuff. That got me out real quick
Fifth grade learning about “to each according to their need, from each according to their ability.” I always thought it made sense. I was still hugely liberalized until I started reading theory but I’ve known that life is unfair since I was ten.
i basically never left that mindset of “everybody should have what they need to survive” that a lot of kids have and then over time it was a matter of learning what that really meant as a fleshed out concept and an ideology.
By default. I was born a communist in a communist country. Now I'm somewhere centre.
grew up conservative christian, and as i got older and saw how racist/opressive their proposed policies were i leaned left. Oct 7th was the big awakening moment for me. Started reading history and leftist literature after that to understand the dynamics and that formed a lot of my now-held political beliefs
October 7th of the current year?
oct 7, 2023 after the attacks in Israel
I used to be something between conservative and liberal before I got more into politics and historical background. I started reading books and talking to people, that’s how I first crossed socialism/communism. Over time and after more research and reading I became a communist myself.
It wasn’t a certain life experience or argument, it just started to make sense while I was learning about it
I downloaded the punk rock starter pack when I was 14 in 1987, and communism was included. Over time, nothing else compared. That's how I got atheism, too.
When I learned to look at the homeless and destitute with empathy rather than disgust. Being raised in a conservative household, it was instilled in us that we don't look in the direction of homeless and to see them a drug addicts that just couldn't pull themselves up by their bootstraps. The world is not as fair as people make it out to be.
I wanted other people to be forced to pay for stuff for me.
i think when it became clear that political freedom was pointless without economic freedom. like, what is the point of doing all the hard, political work of getting marijuana legalized when your boss can fire you for failing a piss test on Monday morning? capitalist organizations are the most authoritarian institutions on the planet but most of us are forced to surrender to their authority or do without food, clothing, shelter, or healthcare.
Living in Congo
I grew up in a conservative household. So i grew up regarding Capitalism as good and being slightly racist. At the age of 30 i was fed up with work and decided to cycle around the world. It took me three years and many experiences and discussions with people in countries like Mexico and Brazil to see through the propaganda. Once I did...
This is why i always try to have empathy towards conservatives. It took so much for me to lose all my beliefs. Im sure its difficult for many people. And i grew up before the internet. The amounts of propaganda conservatives get is insane
Grew up with poor but educated parents.
Noticed that business owners don’t put in the hours or hard labor that workers do, but had the big house and nice truck/car/etc.
Read history books, learned about how places like Sweden operate, found out Cuba teaches it’s citizens to read better than the USA… read about early labor struggles and Pinkertons… saw the USSR fail and China reverse course on what had been a small hopeful moment of “truthieness”, further informing my disgust at authoritarians for ruining everything, always, in all systems.
Read our two major party platforms and voting/legislative choices. GOP by the ‘80s was already airing racist advertisements nationwide, so screw those guys. Democrats weren’t better on caping military spending or pushing for social programs, so I found a party called “Peace and Freedom Party” whose platform matched my ideals, and never looked back.
We won’t see real socialist policies in the USA in my lifetime, unless people can stop pushing fantasies and work with other humans around them.
The ACP guys who infest this place… they’re just MAGA assholes working the grift, a splinter group of a splinter group that doesn’t have the political power found in Bernie’s left toe. Ignore them. We are probably making a mistake giving this sub air.
Edit to add: communism is a fairly extreme form of socialism, and the ACP guys who seem to run this sub seek to conflate the two things, for propaganda purposes. I would need some convincing that communism can be done without socially destructive use of authoritarianism that just puts power in the hands of a different small group, at this point. I support socialism, not communism per se. The goal is to raise up and empower the workers, I feel like people lose that focus too easily when using dogmatic labels and getting pedantic about their ideal utopia that will never be achieved.
The more I learned about life as an adult the more I aligned with food, clothing, shelter to be a human right and not a commodity. And that people should be working to their own ability. If they want to work more to get more luxury by all means. But my values only align pretty far left.
Well when I first heard about "commies" in highschool and how communism is bad and then i read about it, well its not bad. Also love worldbuilding so I researched all the different economic and political systems. Now im a commie.
I listened to what communists had to say and it made sense to me.
Obama promising to be change and that murdering even more people than Bush
Just kept moving left. One of my closest and most respected friends is an anarchist so I gravitate toward it.
I'm not a exactly a Socialist/Communist by your metrics.
However I probably became much more sympathetic to the ACPs views due to the following:
1, Alan Greenspan using the Fed the bailout Long Term Capital Management in 1998 and ushering in the era of guaranteed bailouts and Moral Hazard for those who have financialized the global economy.
2, The US refusing to dial down the size of it's military after winning the Cold War; squandering the Peace Dividend and going full Neo-Cuck for the ultra right wing Zionists.
3, The US and the Western Powers could have done a lot in the 1990s to make the world a better place but instead they went full Wokism, Gender Bender, Neo-Libtard and/or Neo-Cuck for the MIC, Banksters and Mega Corporations.
4, Seeing China actually get things done.
5, The Baby Boomers consuming everything like a Cancer.
6, President Slick Willie allowing the US Congress to dismantle the Glass-Stegall Act. Also #1 to #3 happened under his watch.
7, Seeing Canada decay because the ruling elites and the Latte Leftist of the 416/905 area decided to just be parasites who are sucking off the oil and gas wealth of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Newfoundland.
8, Seeing morons, especially the woke fungus and the other sissy Latte Liberals, who thought that destroying the White Male Unionized working class was an act of liberation when in reality it actually they destroyed a major support pillar of democracy and helped to enrich MNCs and Banksters.
9, 2008 Bailouts...
10, The endless Regime Change Wars.
11, People cheering on Bandarist Nazi scum. I can't believe that the Canadian town I grew up had a freaking Nazi memorial.
12, The Banksters and Big Tech being able to do everything, anything, everywhere at once with no constraints.
13, Big Tech Media Censorship.
14, CIA, MI6, Mossad...can someone tell me what is the difference between them in 2025 versus say the Gestapo or Stalin's NKVD?
15, Complete collapse of any sense of Professional Pride, esprit de corps, Profession autonomy and control within any of the Professions or Trades. Just look at how the teachers are being f-ed up. Look at how the Alberta Teacher's strike ended...
When I realized that there's no need or moral justification for billionaires to exist.
When I realized that demanding everyone equal access to healthcare, clean water, food, education, culture and housing isn't as "radical" as I'd been led to believe before.
When I realized that the anti-immigrant/ultranationalist drum the right-wing populists keep beating is a way to keep masses disunited and distracted from actually relevant societal issues.
When I realized that I have a lot more in common with my local Turkish barber just trying to make a living in this failing economy than Elon Musk.
When I realized that capitalism is a self-devouring snake that requires constant exploitation and wars of imperialism to sustain itself and that its obsessions with endless economic growth and endless exploitation of new and new natural resources have no real endgame.
Even if both systems are flawed, I'd rather back the one that at least tries to encourage our better angels, instead of 'greed is human nature and basically all we are, so don't even try to be better'.
Grew up in a liberal household to parents who worked in unions or government. Both made decent money and had job security, good benefits, lots of vacation days that they used to spend time with us, and have now retired with full pensions and benefits that will support them through retirement.
I studied economics and then law, have been a lifelong student of history and politics, and the more I experience life under capitalism and working in corporate environments with none of the privileges my parents had through their work, the more it infuriates me that we don’t all have what they had, particularly when it’s so achievable. How much better would life be!
Socialist policies work where they’ve been implemented, and are evidence based. Market-based solutions for everything but consumer goods have proven to be pretty terrible, and the impacts of unrestrained consumerism on the planet are devastating. We’re watching China’s long-term planning paying off with incredible infrastructure projects like high speed rail and renewable energy. Meanwhile, America’s structural impediments for long term planning have resulted in crumbling public infrastructure while AI hype drives a multi-TRILLION dollar infrastructure buildout on an unproven technology whose business case is suspect at best.
Like how people still defend capitalism at this point is beyond me. It’s manifestly broken and people just can’t imagine an alternative.
Healthcare and not growing up with any because my parents were self-employed. While, I thankfully turned out ok and my parents never had any big health scares. Also, once I studied econ as a grad degree did I just realize what a load of shit this whole system was built on plenty of assumptions but it was to keep the status quo.