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Comment by LV-426 | Hacker News Reader

Millions fewer than died under centuries of global slavery and imperialism, which I'm sure you're not going to now claim is "not real capitalism".

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That’s a common misconception : Capitalism isn’t as ambitious as communism in that matter. It doesn’t aim at making the world a just or better place, just more economicaly efficient one. Communism is not only an economical system, but it also aims at solving the unfairness that it attributes to capitalism, and then invents all kinds of counter measure ( one of them being the revolution, and « temporary » dictactorship).

For a capitalist, this vision is like blaming the engine for the direction the car is taking.

> Capitalism [...] doesn’t aim at making the world a just or better place

I didn't say it did. I pointed out that if you're going to insist that mass murder under a few decades of communist regimes = real communism, then mass murder (and genocide and slavery) under centuries of capitalist regimes = real capitalism.

> Communism [...] invents all kinds of counter measure ( one of them being the revolution, and « temporary » dictactorship).

Communism did not invent revolution or dictatorship.

Indeed, dictators originally had term limits even, so the idea of a temporary dictatorship is... pretty much its original intent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dictator

Well, no you can’t make that equivalent reasoning , that’s my point. People blaming communism makes a lot more sense because it does deal with what the political regime should be (once again, a dictatorship). Who should be in charge, for what political goals, with which privilege, as well as provides all the intermediate steps on how to accomplish that goal.

It is not of the same nature.

> Well, no you can’t make that equivalent reasoning

And yet I seem to have done it.

> People blaming communism makes a lot more sense

You're entitled to your opinion.

> because it does deal with what the political regime should be (once again, a dictatorship).

Since you persist in arguing about "dictatorship" instead of communism, I don't see any point in continuing this.

Edit: instant downvoter I think you missed one of my posts; here's a link to make it easier:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16034997

Feel free to check out my comments page and obsessively downvote others you may have missed, if any.

I don't understand the sentence "your persist in arguing about "dictatorship" instead of communism". Maybe i wasn't clear in what i meant by dictatorship, but i refer to the "dictatorship of proletariat" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletaria...) which is core to the communist doctrine.

You'll probably argue that this kind of dictatorship isn't to be understood in the common sense, but judging by the various communists thinkers that refer gladly to violence, as well as its historical examples, i'd say the difference aren't that clear.

> "dictatorship of proletariat" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletaria...) You'll probably argue that this kind of dictatorship isn't to be understood in the common sense

I don't have to. Your own link says so in just the second paragraph:

    Dictatorship of the proletariat is different from the
    popular notion of 'dictatorship'

It just doesn't ring true.

Both slavery and imperialism have had a long history before capitalism. Capitalism exists in circumstances with no plausible relationship to slavery or imperialism.

It annoys me because this dialectic is so obviously wrong.

We've asked you before not to use HN primarily to argue about ideology. Since you're still doing that, I've banned this account. Please don't create accounts to break the site guidelines with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

And mass murder had a long history before communism.

Are you even disagreeing with me?

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