Reminder: check your network regularly for communists.

um hi wtf

do you not understand that i'm just a normal nice person and you're aggressively insulting and excluding me

try to be nice

<3

I can be friends with anyone that respects my self-ownership and self-sovereignty. Everyone else is a threat.

communists are working hard to DEFEND you against someone ELSE who's infringing upon you ... all communists want to do to you is to allow you and all workers to have the full value of your work

But what if I worked very hard to acquire assets that earn me money while I sleep? What if I owned property that I rent to people? What if I have employees with whom I have negotiated salaries from which I make profit? Will you defend me?

Negotiating salaries with employees is fine, unless of course you're negotiating by intimidating them and paying them less than the fair market value of their work!! That's all we're talking about, and you should hear us and understand and join our effort.

If at any point you "worked very hard" then that is you being a worker, that's what communists are defending. "Workers of the world, unite!" That's you, a worker, a very hard worker. We want you to unite with us because you're a worker. You're on our side!

i haven't said anything disrespectful to you

you're the one saying hurtful things about me,, you seem to have just called me a "threat"

i'd like if you could calmly realize that i'm not actually a threat to you and actually quite respectful

be nice!! <3

What if I will my bitcoins to my children in 40 years, and they are very rich? I have read a bunch of Trotsky and the essentials from Marx and Engels. I think communism is subjectively defined, and most of the people waving red flags are dangerous.

Kurt, we're not trying to take anything from you ... you're not a capitalist in the sense we mean ... you're hearing us say we want to take from "capitalists" and you think it means you ... YOU'RE NOT A CAPITALIST! ... you're fine, no worries, chill out <3

Having bitcoin is of course harmless. Using bitcoin to buy a slave is of course harmful, not because of the bitcoin but because of the slavery. It's the same with other ways of intimidating people into doing work for you.

OK well I think "most" is some progress, no? If what you'd like to say is that there are some communists who aren't nice, fine. Blanket statements about whole groups of people are very dangerous and you accidentally insulted me, a perfectly nice person. <3

Will do, comrade Wuckert.

Hi @6368

Please explain what you think a communist and capitalist is?

Thanks,

Private ownership vs public ownership

I believe is the topic

Different people are using different definitions of "capitalist," so it's confusing!! What "capitalist" originally meant was someone who doesn't have to work because they use control of resources (including government resources) to compel work from others.

Here, I think most capitalists would accept this definition of capitalism:

An economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals...

..or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

@6368

Do you take any issue with capitalism as I have defined it, and if you do what part of what I defined do you take issue with?

The most dangerous part about capitalism isn't the individual actions of capitalists (actual capitalists, that's people with enough money that they're more interested in paying money than paying work), it's the COLLECTIVE actions of the entire upper class.

A "communist" is someone who believes that there should be enough resources in some sort of shared control by the general population that anyone can have the opportunity to work and produce value using those shared resources. "WORKERS of the world, UNITE!"

and then send them home to mommy

Actually that's an orthogonal issue. I'm an anarchocommunist, so I don't support "public" ownership, as in ownership by a state. But there are communists who also believe that states can truly represent their people, and they do support state ownership. :)

Interesting. Anarchocommunist -
a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought which advocates the abolition of the state, capitalism, wage labour and private property in favor of common ownership

You're missing the main point, which is that once the means of production begins to concentrate in the hands of a subset of the population, that subset FORMS A CLASS and becomes aware of their interests as a class (namely, not sharing capital with others).

Notice how that doesn't specify any PARTICULAR way of organizing common ownership. Particular schools of anarchism are largely distinguished by how they suggest owning the commons together, syndicalism = through unions, mutualism = through co-ops, etc etc.

I'm not sure where you live, but I live in America. Capital is in fact shared, as it's extracted from the individual by the govt, and it's called tax. I think there is a Goldilocks Zone, where a certain amount of tax taken is considered acceptable by most

...and yields a net positive societal benefit. In my opinion that zone errs towards a smaller government with lower tax rates, which allows individuals to decide their own highest-and-best-use of their money.

Treat your day to day life as if you were a capitalist.
Treat your social circle as if you were a socialist.
Treat your family as if you were a communist

I'd rather not drink that Kool aid

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