I don't take the position that they're not authoritarian; I take the position that authoritarianism is a useless concept. It just means "using force". Force can be good or bad, depending on who's wielding it and why.
I agree and want to add that nominally non-authoritarian states still frequently deploy the military and militarized police to deal with dissent.
Liberal states don't eschew the use of authority (force) against dissent. They merely pretend that the dissenters have an alternate way to affect change.
Edit: I just looked at your username and realized that people are going to assume we're each other's alts lmao.
It just means “using force”.
This is simplifying the idea a lot more than it should be. It is not only using force, but using force to suppress criticism, opposition, or segments of the population. It is a separate thing from ideology IMO (But not completely), a liberal state can absolutely be authoritarian, as we see this in practice in a lot of places. If you can be disappeared just cause you disagree with big boss' plan, then we have a problem. If you can get your life ruined cause you told a joke about dear leader to your neighbor, who turned out to be an agent to the secret police, we have a problem. If you can get arrested for watching Star Wars, we have a problem.
If you can get your life ruined cause you told a joke about dear leader to your neighbor, who turned out to be an agent to the secret police, we have a problem.
The funny thing is that I can't point to an instance of this happening in North Korea (not saying it doesn't happen, I just simply don't know one way or the other), but I know of documented cases where South Koreans have been arrested and had their lives ruined for saying they admire Kim Il-sung.
but I know of documented cases where South Koreans have been arrested and had their lives ruined for saying they admire Kim Il-sung.
And this is in no way good and it is authoritarian. My parents both have had visits by cops back in the day because of the wrong apocryphal joke about our own dictator and placed under surveillance. My grandpa had to report to the cops on a regular basis, because one of his sons lived in the West.
You should be arrested for watching Star Wars. For re-education you must watch the entirety of the Star Trek franchise and then you're free to go. It's actually not that short a sentence.
The problem with that then becomes that its a concept used to disguise alternative ways to suppress criticism or opposition, theres no equivalent "-ism" for how the west uses bourgeoise control of the media and schooling to entirely marginalize and make virtually useless leftist criticisms of the system.
Definitely agreed, and that will always be a problem, because the people who control the channels of information, also control what goes through. In the West however, it is not an outright destruction of dissenting voices, unless they cause trouble or become inconvenient. When posting here I do not fear that I will get a visit by some commissar or something. At the same time this place exists because the old sub got banned, cause it was starting to be inconvenient to the people who own and run reddit and their interests..
My hunch is those examples you gave are either infrequent occurrences or mischaracterizations of real instances of spying, infiltration, and foreign interference. You're using scenarios of state repression being used against petty, inconsequential acts when the reality of the situation is those organs of state repression exist to ward off the complete encirclement states like the DPRK face. They face a daily reality of other nations stopping at nothing to tumble their society over, which isn't something nations always know how to deal with effectively.
In fact, I'm usually quite suspicious of calls for more free speech or more free press in nations like the DPRK or Cuba since it's typically just a cover to allow in imperialist/corporate propaganda. Consider it, who would love to finance and direct internal opposition in the DPRK? Who would love to see the society split and their media out of public control?
And your hunch is wrong. State repression in a lot of autocratic regimes is indeed used like that. Think of the US police and how out of control and unaccountable it is? This is what happened in a lot of places with authoritarian regimes, regardless of whether they style themselves communists, fascist or else. In fact this is one of the key features of such regimes - that ideology almost doesn't matter because it is hijacked by the state apparatus.. It was never about whether these people really were of consequence or not, but about power tripping from the cops and the lower level functionaries.
This highlights the problem of runaway lack of accountability of institutions. And when your country is in danger of being infiltrated, invaded or toppled at any point, it is very easy to get such institutions, because you rely on them to protect you from this threat. In a way this is also how US letter agencies get to that point - they use an external threat to justify more and more power. Free speech and expression etc. are very natural human desires, and this is why letter agencies and corporations are using them. Its a hijacking of fundamental things that people desire, and hijaking of the dissatisfaction that these people feel when the institutions take it away.
I honestly dont have a solution to this, obviously dont have unaccountable institutions, but its easier said than done... and also don't be a besieged country, but how does that happen without becoming a bitch to capital?
Is it a bad sign that I kinda want to see Zizek's version of Star Wars?
It came inches from that, like just change the dialogue in one single scene in Attack of the Clones, or remove it and you're left with Dooku siding with the separatists for his own reason (because the republic is impoverishing entire planets, slavery, or any other reason to oppose the republic), and then embracing the Sith during the war because, from his perspective, the Jedi are evil.
Lol juche 4 lyfe but I'd like to see literally anything that backs this up
Free universal housing, healthcare, education, early child care, full employment, public transportation. Nothing for any Americans to sneeze at.
yeah, what does the peoples' economic freedom have to do with authoritarianism??
authoritarianism is when you give the people more freedom, the more free it is the more authoritarian it is
Maybe statistics on incarceration and execution and explanations on the role of police and the military would be more useful.
I mean yes. Full support for the DPRK but they look pretty "authoritarian" to me. I just don't think that has to be a bad thing
yeah they're a pretty high-security state but that's not a bad thing, I don't get why other MLs keep trying to deny that. They wouldn't be so high-security if they weren't constantly sieged by every Western power in existence.
Getting mad at socialist states for being red fash authoritarians is stupid because it ignores the conditions that led to such a situation, but the other side of the goober coin is people that just deny that they’re auth in the first place I guess
regardless of the historical conditions which arbitrarily instituted that predicament
the opposite of Marxism, historical idealism
True. And if you consistently applied Marxism to North Korea, you would find that is an exploitative capitalist country which provides the material basis for repression.
Well I’d assume many people feel the same way, but that’s not my point. I’m saying that getting mad at socialist states for having big militaries and police forces is stupid because these were largely defensive measures. Castro would have been assassinated without his (fairly brutal) counterintelligence agency, Russia would be speaking German without the massive Red Army, and the UN would’ve conquered all of Korea without the PLA
I would agree on the nuke thing. I also agree on the economic point, but the problem with tying yourself into the global market like China is that aiding socialist revolutions around the globe becomes very taboo. If China started arming the Philippine Maoists and like European communist parties or something, the global community would definitely try to retaliate via sanctions and diplomatic isolation, more so than they are already doing that currently.
So, in the 40s-80s it felt like every 5 years a new government became socialist, because the USSR was openly committed to sponsoring revolutions. We will never see that ever again, because China has no motivation to arm rebels in a country when they can just trade with the current administration. Kinda sad
So it’s kinda like a stalemate, the US can’t destroy China because they trade with them, but China can’t weaken the US by aiding socialists in other countries
They are still authoritarian, as you would expect given they are a socialist state under seige
I think this is one of the biggest problems with socialist strategy. We must figure out a way to take power without developing a siege mentality and paranoia after the inevitable capitalist backlash. This siege mentality actually plays into capitalist hands as it prevents socialist states from developing the flexibility, pragmatism, free discussion and experimentation needed to succeed.
How much repression is justified? Is freedom of speech fatal to the socialist state, is it really that fragile?
Free speech is a poor example unless we’re talking about the DPRK
Why? Even Cuba places restrictions on internet, print, public discussion etc.
There is a respect in which socialism is more fragile. Having a distinct goal (i.e. communism), it is capable of failure. A liberal society doesn’t really have a goal other than its own survival.
I don't buy this "we are so fragile, we need to repress OUR OWN people to do a communism" bit. I don't buy it at all. The main reason for repression is the massive contradiction between the alleged goal (communism) and the actual practice (exploitation and alienation).
That aside, the issue isn’t fragility so much as the enemy being so powerful (e.g. the wealthiest country in the history of the planet) that leaving small cracks to be exploited can still be extremely hazardous.
They are right next to the actual most powerful country in the world that actively supports them. They have nuclear bombs. They have artillery aimed at South Korea, that can destroy half the country's infrastructure. North Korea is not under existential military threat. They are far more secure than Cuba so their repression is much less justifiable.
I'm not going to stan countries just because they call themselves communist. Third world countries are known for having corrupt governments that exploit their people. This doesnt magically become not true if such countries reorganize their economies to be state owned, while still maintaining the basic capitalist mode of production.
The dictatorship of the proletariat (which is not a dictatorship in our colloquial understanding of the word, but actually means mob-rule or tyranny of the majority), serves to repress the bourgeoisie, NOT the people themselves.
“North Korea is not under existential military threat” they’re literally at war, and not by choice.
xDDD ebin!!11 so true :D le Xi should gulag libs like me!!
that strategy was invented over 170 years ago and it's called world revolution
It's not a bad idea, honestly. ML can have a little Trotsky, as a treat. :trot-shining:
Well I don't know, maybe the DPRK can do what Marx recommended and abolish the profit motive through price calculations and labor-vouchers? And no, before you say it, it is not necessary to "develop productive forces" before abolishing commodity-production. I see this said by MLs all the time, without a single shred of scientific economic evidence or explanation as to why it is true.
If they're gonna be a Stalinist state, they should at least do stuff like price calculation based on labor, running the economy as a single firm, vigorous repression of markets etc. Those policies actually resulted in the fastest industrialization in history. Instead, North Korea has been liberalizing for decades. If they're gonna liberalize they may as well follow the China method.
How do you figure NK is a profit based ecconomy that doesnt repress free markets ?
Literally the very existence of commodity-production implies profits exist. But apart from that technicality, from what I've read of NK, they have some nominally state-owned enterprises that are actually privately owned. They have foreign businessmen running their own businesses, including entire special economic zones with South Korea and China. They have a substantial black market : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jangmadang.
Also trying to be a country in autarky with a single trading partner under world capitalism while your country isnt that resource rich and never really recovered from the fall of the USSR doesnt bide very well with abollishing commodity production and money.
Once again, you need to actually explain why. Like give an actual economic reason instead of just asserting that it's true. And what do you even think abolishing commodity-production means? It doesnt mean achieving automation or a highly developed economy. It simply means that goods and services are no longer produced for the purpose of earning money from their sale. When private ownership of profit is already (theoretically) banned, what is even the purpose of having commodity production?
Communist countries have not abolished commodity-production not because it's difficult, but due to pure opportunism. Abolishing commodity-production is an act of radical egalitarianism. It would make it impossible for exploitation to exist in such a society, short of naked and clear expropriation.
They arent trying to “develop productive forces” dengist style, idk what you are talking about.
I never said they were doing it Dengist style. They've been liberalizing since 1995, in a very hamfisted way that is not producing the economic benefits that China or Vietnam got.
Their economic system is similar to Cuba , just under much worse conditions, worse starting point and worse natural resources and even bigger forced focus on Military spending
Yes, Cuba has also been liberalizing. Cuba also has markets, the profit motive, black markets, lack of price calculation etc. Maybe they should reduce their military spending as Cuba seems to be doing fine despite being right next to USA.
The USSR under stalin didnt abolish commodity production either and it didnt work on labor vouchers so idk your point and “liberazing” like China at this point wpuld turn them into a much worse Vietnam
Never said the USSR did, I said they followed certain policies(that I listed in that same sentence) that actually worked to bring economic growth and is the biggest reason why ML became so popular. And why exactly would liberalizing turn them into a worse Vietnam?
No project at any large scale has abolished commodity production and surprise surprise North fucking Korea wont be the first to do so or even able to do so
Yes, and I don't expect them to do so, not because they are technically incapable, but because their rulers have no political reason to do so. You asked for a hypothetical solution and I gave one, I didn't say NK will actually do it.
If you're gonna do socialism, you need to actually do socialism instead of half-assing it, making your own weird economic system, and not even achieving economic growth for all your efforts. At the very least, stop pretending your society is even remotely based on Marxist principles. Do you think Marx would be like "critical support for the DPRK" when he actually sees all the black markets, regressive taxation, profiteering etc.
After reading my entire post, this is what you chose to respond to? Cuba has a very good counterintelligence agency, but they are not militarized to the extent that NK is. Cuba spends just 2-3% of their GDP on military.
I cannot, I simply observed that Cuba has much less military spending despite being right next to the beast, while NK is in a far safer position, but somehow requires much more military spending. I just pointed out this obvious discrepancy.
This article does a good job explaining Cuba : https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/07/cubas-model-vindicated . The explanation for NK police-state level spending is the contradictions in their economic organization and their supposed political goals. What is even stranger is that even with a Stalinist police-state, they still have a huge black market. So either they are incredibly incompetent or the state actually supports the capitalist informal economy.
NK being far away from US protects it, we all know that the US cannot invade a country which is physically far away from itself. They should definitely cut their military spending and rely on this foolproof rule of American foreign policy to protect themselves.
what people need to realize about China at that time, is that America opening up its arms to China was - a fluke of sorts. It was a one time deal where the US thought "we can push them to liberalize, and it will cause the grip the party has on power to crumble" and that shit didnt happen. It was one strategy of the cold war that ended up backfiring. America thoguht it would lead to the toppling of socialism in asia
Just give up and keep doing capitalism forever if this is what you’re worried about. Any revolution that threatens global capitalism is going to be attacked so mercilessly that some “authoritarianism” is absolutely going to be necessary. And you’ll notice that these “authoritarian” states are the ones that are still around. Hence, it’s not playing into the capitalist hand at all, and the capitalists know this which is why these states are so heavily demonized in western press.
Good job completely missing my argument. Maybe get rid of your own siege mentality where anyone who critiques existing socialist attempts is "anti-authoritarian" or CIA agent etc.
Authority on its own is not a virtue, there is such a thing as implementation. For example, Cuba, despite being right next to USA, is far more democratic, less repressive and better than North Korea economically and socially. China is even better than Cuba in their pragmatic implementation of socialism, and so on. Both China and Cuba are "authoritarian" but implemented their methods of repression and protection in a far better manner.
What capitalists say in the press, and even our own opinions of socialist countries have zero effect on them. It is idealist and egoist to believe otherwise. The idea that I should "just give up and keep doing capitalism" seems reasonable to you because you are simply unable to think of an alternative to the methods implemented by Marxist Leninist states. You suffer from a "Socialist Realism" so to speak.
And finally, if you read Marx, you would know that these states haven't even begun abolishing exploitation or removed alienation.
It is not a controversial statement to say that it possible to develop methods of governance that don't involve the level of repression North Korea has, while still maintaining sovereignity.
You can have all of these, and still have your freedom completely curbed. All these are important things, but life goes on a lot more beyond these.
Well then allow me appeal to your libertarian priorities, weed is decriminalized there too
I mean if we take her proposal as true, i.e. people in NK do actually have accesses to all these services, then DPRK citizens enjoy a whole lot more freedom than Americans. Freedom of speech is worthless if you are freezing under a bridge, etc. Full employment is a pretty big fucking feat, and I’m sure 99% of people would rather be employed than be able to watch Western TV.
But, I don’t know if her initial premise is true, so I can’t decisively say if she’s correct or not.
What are conditions like for rural North Koreans? From youtube videos and google maps, I see they still live in relatively poor conditions. Is it true there is like a hukou system where rural citizens are not allowed to live in cities? Also, where can I get access to unbiased economic data of NK? I cant even find GDP figures anymore.
There are Soviet style mobility restrictions, and housing is allocated based on political reliability in the capital, and you need to apply for a permit to move. These are apparently fairly easy to get in recent years but were strongly restricted in the post-Soviet emergency period.
The DPRK is encouraging movement to the cities as farms mechanise/re-mechanise and infrastructure improves.
Additionally short term/holiday travel seems to be fairly easy, about equal to the SU.
aye any tips on getting a tourist visa? i've been looking into traveling to the various present and past aes and see what goes on for myself. if i like it might consider moving to one of them.
There's a couple of agencies around that plan tours for westerners, and that's the only way you'll get in. They're pretty expensive and very controlled, though you do get to see some countryside.
DPRK would be last on my list of AES states to live, Below Laos, Nepal and Transnistria. Not because "Teh Evulz" but because they're the most besieged.
Try Cuba or Vietnam, they're much easier to go to if you absolutely must bail on the Western Working Classes.
nepal is dead easy to visit given i'm in india.
if you absolutely must bail on the Western Working Classes.
:sweat:
Its impossible to know, but Juche philosophy is good and since the only reliable information we have is that the USA doesn't like them, they deserve our support.
This is not a good attitude to have. Marx didn't just say "critical support to Paris commune", he wrote a lot about exactly what's wrong with it, where improvements can be made etc. Our "support" means nothing unless we actually have military and economic power to back up that support. I developed a much better understand and appreciation of the Soviet Union once I read Marxist criticisms of their mistakes and missteps. So no, I wouldnt accept Juche philosophy until I can get enough data and rational analysis of their society.
I'm being facetious, but what I meant was just the actual Juche philosophy. What Kim Il Sung contributed to Marxism.
I agree though, I think I became a lot smarter when I accepted that Stalin wasn't actually that great.
edit: wrong link
(I'll never stop loving you papa joe)
could you link to some criticism of stalin from an ml standpoint? i really wanna get into why the eastern bloc split up so damn quickly.
Sure, here's some stuff. But truthfully most valid criticisms of Stalin come from the non-ML left, because most MLs do uphold Stalin. And most of the ones who don't simply just have WW2 brainworms they can't let go of.
Most of the areas I think Stalin failed is on social issues. I don't think many chapos are ready to accept the fact that Uncle Joe would hate all of us and think we were all counter-revolutionary degenerates. Dude was very uh... socially conservative.
Primary Sources:
Mao's Critique of Stalin's Economic Plan
Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed
Secondary Source of Stalin being gross:
Stalin's cringe as fuck homophobia
Stalin rolling back Lenin's advancement of civil rights for gays and women
Stalin's affair with a 13 year old when he was 22
2 videos by Hakim, the Marxiest motherfucker alive:
Failures of Former Socialisms (talks about more than Stalin's USSR)
edit: one thing to keep in mind is that lenin and stalin realized the dream of revolution. they laid he foundations for a global super power in the name of communism. the only reason anyone even has anything to criticize at all is because of them, and in that sense you have to give him a lot of credit. Not that "is X historical figure good or bad?" isn't a completely trivial question in the first place. unfortunately its one that we commies have to address a lot.
I find Juche to be inherently Idealist, but there are some nice developments along Mass Line stuff, especially in the earlier works.
That's because it IS Idealist, which is why Marxists don't really take it seriously. What's interesting though is it's not unique. Sartre's final book, Critique of Dialectical Reason, is conceptually the same as Juche. I don't know if Kim was reading Sartre, or it was discovered independently, but it is worth looking at if you buy into the Existential line at all (which, I am unfortunately a lib, and I do).
I think Juche as it seems to be practiced would be batshit insane on a global scale, but hey if it gets them to communism, good for them. I still withhold judgement about stories coming out of Radio Free Asia.
That stuff about the Mass Line sounds interesting though, I'll see if I can dig it up. I'm just starting to really get into Mao (why did i read sartre and juche before mao idk lol)
Yeah, don't think we disagree (I'm more partial to Camus than Sartre if I absolutely must embrace 20th century Continental philosophy.)
Have you read any Fredric Jameson? You might like his approach.
For basic socioeconomic data I use UNICEF. Most of it is empirically derived from on-the-ground work by the UN.
authoritarianism is when people lack human rights and access to basic services and the more services they have the less authoritarian it is
If only people would just live in the wilderness they would know real freedom
Yeah it’s why neolibs getting mad at ‘tankies’ is so weird, like homie you want the exact same thing except NATO tanks rolling over people instead
I always brought this up even before I thought of myself as an ML and for almost ten years I’ve not yet heard a valid response to it
Because there really isn’t one. My favorite example is the Cold War. Name something bad the Soviets did during this time frame, and I can easily name some US-backed right-wing genocide that was 10x worse and was happening in the same year.
But for some reason, ML states are seen as inherently bad, and you’re an inherently bad person for liking them, but we don’t use that same logic with America.
The best they have against the USSR is famine, which regularly happened in Russia for hundreds of years, and STOPPED during the years of the USSR. And then to take it one step further the USSR overtook the US in caloric consumption and dietary health
People will tell you communism brings poverty and famine meanwhile after decades of global capitalism 2/3rds of the world lives in poverty and we're told world hunger is just something that happens. The System That Works™
Its not really the wests' style to respond to a student protest in their periphery demanding greater rights for workers, free elections and more equitible disribution of wealth by rolling in a bunch of tanks from the core to strongarm them back into subjugation. They are much more likely to finance "rebels" from within the periphery to carry out a seemingly homegrown campaign of terror to bring a halt to any demands that would interfere with their hegemony.
Vietnam and Korea and Iraq were proxy wars, and Afghanistan was invaded as Saudi Arabia's whipping boy. None of them due to a popular uprising pushing demands disfavorble to the core. Compare that to all the times a left-leaning (often democratically elected) leader starts doing redistribution reforms on assets USA is too close to, and suddenly they're deposed in an in internal coup, or even the Iran 1979 uprising
Nicaragua? The whole Contra thing? They were literally using American tanks and being trained by American soldiers. I guess I don't really draw a line between mercenaries trained and supplied by a bourgeois state and the official army of that state. They're functionally identical except the mercs have less oversight.
It's not real, it's Weber's social contract dishonestly taken to the logical extreme
