What are your thoughts on socialism/communism?

As someone from a former communist country, it's absolutely dumb and anyone living in the west wishing for communism has absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Also every single gender special TRA has been a commie or socialist, so it's definitely not linked to capitalism. Women have been marginalized in every single economic system to date. The only decent(ish) thing that came from the Soviet Union was free childcare but that comes at the cost of getting your kids pumped full of propaganda and ideology at a young age. Imagine the only childcare options being heavily TRA and unquestionably for the only party in the country. It's already starting to be this way in the US so definitely a big no thanks.

Contrary to popular western belief, communism and socialism does not result in people's needs met and people just getting free stuff left and right. It means everyone gets the same trash quality thing and working non stop. You can't get extra nice things if you work harder, only if you are part of a corrupt system.

My whole family and countless others worked so hard to get to the US and always praise it and the opportunity it provides. Sadly the US is far from what it was and the new generation is no longer better off than the older one, but it's far better than in communism.

I really encourage anyone who is into this ideology to just seek a wide variety of primary sources and experiences from people who actually lived in communism and different regimes. Learn the reality of what it is, and then decide if you want to pursue that.

EDIT: I also wanted to add that I also laugh at conservatives who think every public good is evil communism or socialism. I am very pro things such as social security, WIC, etc (but never UBI). You would not have anything like that kind of support for people who need it in a truly communist country.

Marxism has the best, most insightful analysis of the harms of capitalism. It also has the very worst solutions.

I’m a socialist, as in I believe the workers should own the means of production and the economy should be planned instead of led by the “invisible hand” or whatever. But I’m pretty flexible. I’m in favor of things like UBI, worker co-ops, universal health care, etc. I would even support a mixed economy where you have for instance food and healthcare co-ops that don’t generate a profit but other things can be sold for profit. My main concern with capitalism is that everything is for profit and some things just should not be profited upon. That’s how we end up with billionaires making even more money during the pandemic while small/local businesses failed. I agree with you, I see gender ideology as a result of our current mode of capitalism, specifically our for-profit medical industry, and the hyperindividualism that is pushed on us in order to justify it. But I also agree that capitalism didn’t cause all of our problems so I’m skeptical about how beneficial socialism could be for women if we’re still living in a male dominated society.

I am a socialist, I believe all the vital services should be controlled by government, housing, health system, utilites, public transport, basically run for the people so that they can have a good life and never be destroyed utterly by poverty.

but there should be capitalism in the luxuries to give a wide choice for fashion, tech and so on.

most countries have an element of socialism, if they didn't what the hell are you paying taxes for? things like fire service, police, army are socialist systems

Any extreme regime is garbage. Communism fucking sucks. Capitalism also fucking sucks.

As long as humans are both a social species capable of empathy and a species that understands the concept of trade, elements of socialism and capitalism will both continue to exist in our way of life. personally I'm a fan of a mixed economy all the way. Vital things should have a govt, not-for-profit option available to all, and luxury things should run on capitalism.

I’ve always supported a mixed economy. There are some industries that should never be privatized, such as prison services. Some industries do well with a combination of private and public enterprise. And, especially in the case of luxury good, sometimes private industry does just fine. I think the opportunity to profit has driven innovation. I don’t support communism at all because I consider democracy to be essential. I’m not anti-socialism, but not pro-socialism either.

Socialism, sure. Communism, NO. I just finished the Gulag Archipelago and Masha Gessen's the Future is History and am reading (audiobook tho) Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain about the non-Russian eastern European countries post WWII. I also recently finished "First They Killed My Father" about Cambodia's revolution. I am reading these types of books because the gender stuff reminds me of other authoritarian or totalitarian regimes in history, especially the compelled language, the newspeak, the vitriol towards dissenters, the lies and absurdity etc. The parallels are quite scary.

All of the regimes that have tried communism have failed, feature arbitrary arrest, torture and detention, use terror to control people and the people do not live in some sort of utopian society where everybody's needs are met.

I do believe that capitalism incentivizes innovation and motivates people, but do believe in some redistribution of wealth and social safety nets (UBI, healthcare, low cost childcare and education).

Socialism will never work and every time people try, it ends in a totalitarian dictatorship. The way people celebrate communism (including Che Guevara, Maduro, Castro) without society and mainstream media much batting an eye to it is absolutely disturbing. I can't accept people complaining about fascism when they defend such things.

Most communist men are psychos who want a revolution just so they have an opportunity to commit violence and rape women, and the socialism leaves their body when they talk about prostitution. Under these conditions, women just become another resource to be shared. If communism is implemented, it's this kind of men who will end up as the rulers.

Capitalism does suck, but communism is not any better. And many anti-capitalist people just blame everything on it, acting like all bad things will go away if we move to socialism. How many times I've read bs like "capitalism invented misogyny". It's time to seek another alternative.

Edit: and by the way, Cuba supports surrogacy and gender ideology. The same country whose doctors working in Brazil couldn't receive their payment directly, the money was first sent to their government and then a small share sent back. I've never seen a single socialist who criticized these things. So couple communism's failures with lack (or censorship) of criticism, and it's a recipe for disaster. In most capitalistic countries people are allowed to complain about the government and even the big media does it.

The single most important factor in a nation's quality of life for women is the level of corruption in the government. Every government has some corruption, but the countries with the lowest rates of corruption have the best quality of life and higher sex equality. The sad thing is once corruption is SOP it's near impossible to get rid of. Case in point: The high levels of corruption in ex-Soviet states being carried over from the baked-in corruption of the USSR. Capitalism isn't to blame for the decrease in the US's quality of life, it's the increase in government corruption.

Most people who claim to want socialism/communism (under political theory, there's virtually no difference, Norway/Sweden/Denmark are not socialist) would really hate the results. How it works in practice is that the need for everyone to be in this together means that many forms of difference (racial, ethnic, cultural, sexual) are suppressed as much as possible.

There have been many cases in communist countries where minorities are forcibly integrated into the larger culture so they can become efficient workers. This often happens under capitalism simply due to market forces, but many capitalistic countries still have a concept of minority rights. I'm not sure I'm aware of any communist country that does or had that concept or at least made any real attempt at guaranteeing it. It figures that, as Cuba is becoming more capitalistic, it has relaxed its discrimination against gays and is now embracing gender theory.

Communist theory is very naive about what the larger share of people think of minorities and how minority rights would be very difficult to protect under the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Humans are fundamentally tribalistic and dislike difference.

I fear that some form of collectivism is inevitable due to how badly humans are trashing the environment, the path there will be very ugly, and the result will also be ugly.

I live in a socialist country.

Since our taxes are very high, people assume that these taxes indeed go to helping society. So we don't really need to give to charity or help a neighbour or anything like that. The state is supposed to take care of that, so the citizens don't have to care. Our overall compassion stat is low.

On paper, we claim that we are helping the poor and those in general need. We can give the middle classes the illusion that this works, because the middle classes may seldom or never have to ask the state for help.

In reality, getting help can be very difficult, and people are often shuffled from one instance to the next. People with children may not be able to ask for help, since the state can and has removed children based solely on social worker bias. Women with children are told to get evicted from their apartments so that they can receive aid.

Since the middle classes don't think things can get that bad, they tend to see anyone with complaints about the system as crazy, unhinged, and ungrateful. Being politically active within socialist parties here is a thing people do for the sake of tradition and being fashionable, they don't really care about how the lower classes are being treated.

We do have better sex equality here. We also don't teach girls basic safety like 'stay in groups' or 'don't go through the park wearing a tiny dress', because the trust in the state is so high. People are shamed for teaching girls safety tips, because it's assumed that rapists will be caught by the police, and that that is the end of it.

Feminism over here are more like social clubs for middle-class women. Lower-class women are looked down on and derided as racist, transphobic, etc. These feminist clubs have a lot of influence. I'd be very happy if I could find some groups that genuinely were interested in making things better for the poorest women.

I don't know enough about politics to be able to say if any other system is better or worse, nor do I care. I am tired of seeing people worship socialism and communism though, and I'd be just as tired of conservatism and nationalism if people were championing that as brainlessly in public.

Not to say that OP is brainless, OP makes some interesting points and seems to know what she's talking about. I just wanted to share my perspective as someone who lives in a socialist country with good PR.