They donate not because of the goodness in their heart, but because they get tax cuts from it.
Furthermore, what does donation really accomplish when:
People are still suffering, regardless of how many charities there are and how much money they get;
Those wealthy donors are the reason people continue poor since they are only wealthy by exploiting other people's work.
Charities shouldn't need to exist in the first place.
Yeah yeah, continue to spout your anti-communist propaganda. You already live in a dictatorship, you're just to propagandized to realize it.
The only dictatorship we want is that of the proletariat, as opposed to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. That is, a true popular democracy.
Maybe listen to what other people have to say and go read communist theory before saying anything you don't know about.
As it stands your position is not left in any stretch of the imagination.
That's the thing, you identified an issue, we constantly hear bad and scary stuff about China all the time, that's western propaganda trying to turn China into the enemy so whatever the west, mainly the US, wants to do, becomes justifiable.
You don't need to live there to know, at least partiatly, the reality of what goes on in the country nor it's international relations. I'm not from the US, but I do know all those things I just cited in my last comment. All you need are good sources. You can start by studying how China handles its international relations. You'll quickly realize that China doesn't threat, embargo or invade other countries.
If you are genuinely interested you can learn a lot by visiting Lemmygrad and Hexbear, there are communities there to ask for information, and as long as you're wanting to learn, you will be welcomed.
Also, Xi Jinping is not insane at all like the media likes to portray him. The statement is too broad for me to tackle any specific thing, tho.
I don't think China cares about human rights very much. And I would not be surprised if people gets killed and made to disappear if they are inconvenient.
Again, very broad statement, what human rights and what you mean by this? This probably comes from more propaganda led disinformation.
Also, China is a massive country with 1.4 billion people. Do you really think we wouldn't have proof of people being repressed, killed and disappearing? The people there aren't isolated from the internet, they can access beyond the restrictions easily with VPNs which are common, it would be easy to show this stuff to the rest of the world.
Protests happen all the time in China and people critique the government, just like basically any other country.
If you want the perspective of a foreigner living there, I recommend the youtube channel Felipe Durante, he speaks Portuguese but the auto translate on youtube should be good enough, at least for english.
Fucking hell. This isn't an opinion, it's a fact that the US is the enemy of the world. The US funds coups, destabilize, install military dictatorships, invades and bombs countries and it's the only country in the world to drop a nuclear bomb on people, and THEY DID IT TWICE.
Stop making "wHaT iFs" in your head and actually look at the reality of what China does. It's not even comparable.
Peaceful to who? It's not peaceful for countries at war, neither for black people and other ethnic minorities in the US or here in Brazil since the police is racist and will kill for absolutely nothing. This can't be ignored.
Carrying the collective knowledge of humanity on our pockets is impressive and yet we are pushed sensationalized lies and disinformation for profits sake at every corner. Even when its not for profit, the status quo is so strong that other views and perspectives are easily dismissed. The whole internet is so heavily monetised you can't use it properly without an adblock.
I think this is a better perspective, since it screams that we need change, radical change, the current system cannot solve any of this.
Neither doomerism, nor this positive way of viewing the world are gonna change it for the better, only fighting for it will.
I just started pirating again in the last couple of months after basically not pirating for years. Now fuck corporations lol.
I pirate books for a few reasons, first is because knowledge should be free, second is because buying books gets expensive real quick and third because I can't find everything I want to buy, sometimes pirating is the only way to get it. I like to have it physically when possible, tho.
Entertainment (Series, Anime, Cartoons, Movies) I pirate because I'm sick of being a second class citizen of nearly every streaming service just because I'm a Linux user. I can watch netflix at 1080p with an extension on Firefox, and Crunchyroll doesn't limit me in any way, but everything else is 720p or lower. By pirating, I even have 4k available. Also, fuck streaming prices and fuck netflix for charging extra for sharing an account.
Software I don't pirate because I prefer to use FOSS and in the case of games I don't really wanna gamble if I'll get a malware or not. Besides, I have a huge respect for the medium and I buy a game whenever I can.
For music Spotify and Youtube is too convenient, I only pay for Spotify, tho. Revanced for Youtube on mobile and ublock origin + sponsorblock + return youtube deslikes on desktop is great.
Besides all that, everyone should have access to knowledge and entertainment, it's 100% justified for people to pirate, specially those that can't afford it.
Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn't pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it? i.e., had you paid for the book, you would have more likely read that book.
When I used to pirate heavily a decade ago yeah, today not really, buying or not my ADHD is so bad I can't get through easily anyway lol.
I'm gonna reply to both your comments here, so this is gonna be a massive reply.
Right, that’s the definition in the book, but in practice, for what you find in the comments sections, my description is a better fit.
I've never seen a single communist/socialist use your description. Like I said "capitalist" have a definition and we use it, communism is not a freestyle idea where we just say what ever comes to our mind, there is theory behind all of this. You should read Marx and watch channels like Second Thought.
If people can’t “own the means of production (which, by the way, every single person does)”
No, Private Property is also a defined term. Private Property refers to the private property of the means of production, so things like land, farms, factories, machines etc. It's literally the means in which production happens, and the people that owns this are the bourgeoisie, the common worker doesn't.
The opposite of Private Property is Personal Property, which is the things you personally own, like your smartphone, your TV, your computer, your toothbrush etc.
then they are not free to associate or trade freely.
How are they not? You can associate with anyone you want and trade freely with anyone you want, again the only thing you can't do is own the means of production and exploit people for their labor.
In case you don't know what I mean by exploiting people for their labor, it has to do with Marx concept of surplus value, which is basically the fact that the worker creates more value than they receive in wages.
Where people can associate freely, trade freely, and own property, private businesses get started.
State owned enterprises and workers' coops exists.
Outlawing business necessitates interfering with people’s aforementioned freedoms.
Let's be real here, what "freedoms" do the average person have? Because it's ever so clear that the working class doesn't have freedom or even choice for that matter.
You work 10 hours a day, your job pays you pennies and you can barely scrap by? Too bad, you can't negotiate better pay and better work conditions because your boss can simply fire you and hire someone else that will do the same thing you do for less, or just threat doing that if you continue insisting.
If we are talking about the US, then you can't even have the luxury of being sick or suffering an accident, the trip to hospital and the treatment are gonna bankrupt you.
In a socialist society everyone gets to have healthcare, education, work and stability. This allows for much more freedom than just being a cog in the machine with no certainty for tomorrow. It allows freedom to actually be someone and not just some product that needs to sell themselves at every corner to afford to exist.
Also, “kulaks” were a thing. If a farmer was prosperous, he was taken to the cleaners, sometimes killed, and his property taken from him. Communists reek of envy.
Do you mean gulags? (Which are just prisons, by the way.) Kulaks are just farm owners, and if they refuse collectivization of the farm for the benefit of everyone instead of themselves, they should rightfully be thrown into prison.
If by being "prosperous" you mean accumulating and controlling the grains for themselves while they let everyone else starve, them yeah, they were being "prosperous".
Also, “the top 1%” doesn’t do nothing. They govern and regulate the business, which is something that has to be done.
There is no need for this because the workers themselves can govern and regulate the business. A business without an owner is a cooperative, a business without workers is nothing.
They take all of the risk. You might like to socialize gains, but you don’t want any part of the losses, do you? Businesses take the majority of the gains, but suffer all of the losses.
What risk? If we are talking about a random Joe that wants to start a small local bar, market, bakery or whatever, then yeah, they are taking a huge risk. If their business fails they can go into a debt they can never recover. Bezos and Musk doesn't have to worry about anything, they can open a 100 different business and if only one is successful, it'll pay for the other 99 that failed.
For the majority of people, simply commuting to work is a bigger risk than any risk these businesses can take. If the business closes, the workers lose their job and risk losing everything while the capitalist just moves on to whatever they want to do next. Hell, the business doesn't even need to close, every now and then there is news about a massive amount of people being fired despite the company reporting massive or even record profits.
And no, making something does not confer ownership. If I hire you to mow my lawn, you do not then own my lawn, or my lawnmower, or the dirt. You own the consideration I paid to you to mow my lawn. Same with anything else.
You are equating doing a service with making a product. If you pay someone else to mow your lawn that's it, that's the whole operation you can't make a profit of their labor, you are simply paying them to do a service for you. If someone works at your factory, you pay them less then the value they produce for you to make a profit, a profit that can only exist because of the worker, and not despite them. Again, a business without an owner is a cooperative, a business without workers is nothing.
Also, ownership of the means of production is collective, not individual like in your example. All the workers own their workplace, therefore all of them have agency over their work conditions, that's called democracy.
If a business has parts and makes them into products, and a worker takes the parts which are not his and makes a product, that product doesn’t magically become his because he put it together. The paycheck becomes his.
If an owner that produces nothing and have workers takes the product that the workers produced to sell for a profit, that product doesn't magically become theirs because they took it, it belongs to the workers that made it.
It's an unequal relationship, even if the owner is the one that bought the parts that are used to make the product, the workers are not gonna be paid fairly for doing all the work.
The relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is antagonistic. The proletariat wants to be paid as high as possible to work as little as possible, while the bourgeoisie wants to pay as low as possible for the highest amount of work as possible.
To work is to collectively produce something for society, so why does someone that doesn't even take part in the production gets to individually own the labor and products of the workers?
A “capitalist,” according to socialists, esp. Marxists, is someone who engages in anticompetitive behavior, insider trading, protection racketeering, bribery, and all manner of dubious and criminal behavior.
No, a capitalist is someone that owns the means of production and doesn't have to work to live. People like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. And since capitalism is an infinite for profit driven economy, the capitalists will do anything to increase their profit and their power, hence why they engage in the things you listed, the system literally demands it.
Someone who just believes that people should be able to trade freely, associate freely, and keep the vast majority of what they have earned or traded for fairly are routinely called capitalists by socialists and communists to shame them for being successful.
No, we call them liberals or neoliberals, because that's what they are, "capitalist" have an actual definition, like I explained above, just like what you are describing is a lib. Besides, everyone can trade freely in a socialist society, what they can't is own the means of production and exploit peoples labor for their own profit.
Also, we don't shame people for being "successful". There is no moral judgment, we simply understand how the system work and want to dismantle it, so exploitation from human being to human being ceases being a thing.
If the worker makes everything, everything belongs to the worker and not the 1% at the top that does nothing.
Oh just fuck off you transphobic, ableist piece of shit.
You come here saying the most ignorant, insensitive crap and then try to demand people to answer you?
And stop with the LGB bullshit. Will it take you imbeciles having your skulls literally crushed by fascists to realize that siding with this alt-right rethoric is the wrong fucking thing to do?
Thanks a lot, comrade!
Hey, I would like the reasources you mentioned if it's not too much hassle for you.
Let's take a step back. Why does the majority of people suffer under capitalism? Because they have to live in a world where they don't get good, free healthcare, don't have a right to a house, don't earn nearly enough to live comfortably, don't have enough vacation, can't afford to take a trip, don't have time to enjoy their lives, are alienated from their work, have shitty jobs, work too much, etc, etc, etc.
That creates a necessity for charities for all the basic stuff everyone should have, but doesn't currently have. If we give free good healthcare for everyone, the need for charities to threat people disappears. If we give everyone a home, the need for charities for homeless people, disappear.
What??? You do know that most breakthrough advancements doesn't come from the private initiative right? It comes mainly from public, government expending, into research. This idea that private entities advance society is just a liberal propaganda lie that is peddled to us all the time since birth.
I'm not talking about making charities illegal, I, like every other communist in the world, am talking about solving the issue at it's roots, eliminating capitalism, and that requires eliminating exploitation through labor and eliminating the rich and insanely wealthy as a class.