this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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Late Stage Capitalism
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Historically that's not true.
"Brainwashing" as a concept does not exist. People license themselves to accept whatever they think is useful to them. See "Brainwashing" and Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of "Brainwashing."
Historically, living standards in Socialist countries governed by Communist parties most dramatically improved for the working class, and in a manner quantitatively different from Capitalist production. See the USSR, as an example:
Or see the PRC's eradication of poverty and increase in income by generation, compared to the US:
Tbf the example countries are countries that started very poor, so had the opportunity to make more impressive gains from more moderate gains in quality of life than those of already advanced economies. More advanced economies haven't usually turned to socialism though, so it's hard to compare.
"Advanced" countries, such as the US, perpetuate their systems and have not had revolution because they benefit from Imperialism, and use a portion of the spoils of international plunder to bribe their domestic proletariat. As the PRC reaches the status of "developed country," we should see how its metrics compare, though compared to Capitalist peers of similar development its generally far ahead.
They had the same opportunity under capitalism, and yet they didn't
Found the Commie academic, guys!
Sure? I read theory but that's not my job.
These relative measures seem like not entirely honest. Did the GDP of USSR ever reach or pass UK's? Growth is important of course in the high level, but for the common people absolute wealth probably means more.
That's a bit hard to directly measure as the USSR was focused on production, rather than maintaining a crumbling Empire like the UK was, so measuring GDP in both countries is difficult (state-driven economies also have difficulty with tracking GDP). We can look at increases in metrics and access to goods, though, which led to a doubling in life expectancy for Soviet citizens ans dramatic poverty reductions (outside of wartime).