News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minutes (2014) [video]. Parent comment

Re:Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minut... by turar on Saturday October 29, 2016 @10:51PM (#12827883)
No countries actually had communism, but if we're talking about socialism, then you're mostly right. My opinion is that there are many reasons for it, including:

- Those countries were poor and without sufficiently established democratic institutions.

- Those countries had to immediately mobilize to defend from richer capitalist countries (lead by the US) trying to undermine them in any possible way. Constant defense mode leads to totalitarianism.

That doesn't mean that socialism requires totalitarianism by nature.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minut... by BurningFrog on Saturday October 29, 2016 @11:17PM (#12827971)
Central planning of all production means that the central planners controls everything in society.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, in 20 minut... by turar on Sunday October 30, 2016 @10:05AM (#12829839)
Central planning is not a requirement for socialism.

In fact, the only significant difference between capitalism and socialism is a democratically controlled workplace, which is inherently less authoritarian than capitalistic totalitarian workplace governance.

It's also ironic how people constantly conflate "democracy" and "capitalism" on one hand, and "totalitarianism" and "communism" on the other, while completely accepting totalitarianism during a significant portion of their life -- their workplace.

[ Parent | on HN ]