this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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Memes

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This particular thing was actually tried by the Soviets. Farms were considered excesses of kulaks. Kolhos (collective "farm") was the replacement.

And yes, it was possible to say "my kolhoz" like people say "my city", good point. Even if "our kolhoz" was a lot more accepted, since it emphasizes how collective it is.
It is also possible to feel personal affinity to collectively owned space.

The difference between usually implied individual "my farm" and collective "my farm" is of course in the governance.

Collective ownership may end up being governed by ineffective unaccountable and irresponsible "people representatives". E.g. deciding that genetics is a capitalist plot, and planting corn everywhere is the solution to all problems (both cases actually happened on a massive scale).

The result is not very different from what ineffective unaccountable and irresponsible large capitalist landowners do.

Both systems disenfranchise the disadvantaged ones, since decisions can practically never be completely unanimous.
So it's good if you agree with the party line, but if not - violent suppression comes, no teaching on the farm.
That's where the feeling of "my farm" breaks down. On a private farm you have a lot more options before you are lost.

I get the challenges with governance in capitalism-turining-feodalism which we have now in many cases.
But I do not get it why people imagine that full collective ownership is a good and sustainable alternative.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

None of this is a critique of ideologies like syndicalism and anarcho-communism, so it's still a pretty ignorant meme that conflates Soviet communism with all forms of communism.

None of this disproves what people like Peter Kropotkin and Emma Goldman were writing about, whose worldviews do not disenfranchise such groups.

I also heartily disagree with your take about private farms. The options you think you have with "private property" are a scam.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most early Bolshevik policies were more situational than ideological. The main priorities were to repel threats and industrialize as quickly as possible. They expected to be crushed by industrialized capitalist powers unless they reached parity.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

And to refute OP again, the Maoist Revolution lead to a near equal redistribution of land among the peasantry.