I thought the magic of capitalism automatically lifted everyone out of poverty and ignorance.

Surely there's been some mistake.

Yes some (particularly on the right) do, do that and it is just dumb.

Decades of dramatic restriction on free movement; little or no tolerance for political dissent; one of the most restrictive presses in the world; general disregard for due process, especially in cases involving people who are/were critical of the government; lack of an independent judiciary; widespread corruption; no free elections

In other words, the usual stuff you see in dictatorships.

Except they always are like that, or worse, like North Korea or the Dergue regime in Ethiopia, who murdered a schoolfellow of mine, Kassar Asrate. Invariably bloody awful. Vietnam puts on a nice show for tourists, but Vietnam had its 're-education camps' and all those boat people (remember them?) didn't flee for no reason. Phan Thi Kim Phuc, the famous 'little girl running' in Nick Ut's 1972 photo of the aftermath of a napalm strike in Vietnam, later emigrated to Cuba, and not surprisingly didn't want to stay there and sought political asylum in Canada, where she's lived happily ever since.

I'm not advocating for communism. And the argument that communism inevitably morphs into authoritarianism has been around for 60-70 years. I'm merely pointing out that the best arguments for communism and socialism do not revolve around caping for Soviet Russia and Cuba.

There are no such 'best arguments', though.

communism is a stateless, classless society

there's no evidence of that morphing into authoritarianism

A commonly repeated point, but it misses some key issues.

The first is that there are variants of communism. Marx' ideas of communism are widely different than those of Bakunin (which puts much more emphasis on voluntarism). The second is that Marxism uses the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". A term Marx and Engels adopted to describe the necessary stage between capitalism and communism. This "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" is a state.

Leninism, the reigning ideology of the Soviet Union and the main inspiration for communist revolutions, resulting states and communist ideologies that gained traction, is based on this idea of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The "communist states" claim to be in this phase. While there are proponents of this ideal, I find it to be a cacophony of horrors.

So it is somewhat disingenuous to say that "communism is a stateless society". The ideal of communism might be a stateless society, but communism as Marxism has no problem with a political revolution and organizing this revolution in the form of a state.

Right. I was going to make this exact point.

I don't think asking the ruling class to give up their power is a viable strategy. It has to be taken from them and it seems important that the dictatorship of the proletariat actually be of the proletariat, which means it has to be democratic enough to not replace one ruling class with another.

There is always a "Ruling Class."

If enough of the populace are docile and reasonable, then a minimalistic State that basically does little more than keep the peace and provide basic services and infrastructure might be possible.

Otherwise, it's either Mob Rule/Anarchy or a Police State.

First look at what came before. Second, look at how American puppet states in Chile, SK, East Timor, Guatemala, Panama, Vietnam etc act. Third, look at the situation they were in with USA sabotage, bombing (yes we bombed Cuba all the ****ing time), assassination, and embargo. Finally, ask yourself how much of those things occur in the USA.

Preventing envy is probably the best argument for communism/socialism. Start everyone equal and in a couple/few decades 20% will own 80% of the wealth. So even without all the theft, grift, corruption, etc., we're still having the same basic conversations/arguments. But in terms of functionality, I don't see why we couldn't make communism work at least as well for most people as our current system and especially well for the poor. Here, anyway. I doubt many Americans would be in favor of sharing their share of the wealth with the rest of the world though, so hearts are a long way away from that sort of volitional utopia.

Why do literally millions of people from all major ethnic groups and religions choose to leave their home countries to live in the United States?

None of this is a defense of Cuban government

Black markets requiring policing orders of magnitude greater than the US drug war.

Enjoy being poor, loser.

right but I mean, this is the communism vs capitalism thread so we arent just talking in a vacuum.

the thing is, I can do math. and it doesnt take much more than basic arithmetic to see that there is plenty enough to go around. capitalism destroys resources. destroys wealth. creates artificial scarcity so that few can profit.

What is your favorite Communist country, and when do you plan to move there? I'm sure any Communist country would love to have you, since I believe they typically have more people wanting to leave than people wanting to come in.

The "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" as defined under Leninism and its variants are not democratic in any sense as understood by a modern democracy, it explicitly gives control of the state to a single party. The exact mechanism differs a bit depending on the variant, but the result are similar.

It does use the term "democratic centralism". Basically it gives control of of the outcome or the choices in general elections to the ruling party, which renders them irrelevant. The actual voting is then limited to the central committee ("party parliament"), politburo ("party cabinet") and general / first secretary ("party leader").

The relationship between these institutions change over time and country, but the typical pattern is that it is very easy for power to shift to the seat of the general / first secretary. This happened under Stalinism in Soviet, in Cuba under Castro (where it is called the the first secretary) and is currently the status quo in China.

An easy equivalent is to imagine a modern democracy consisting of one party which would have the power to decide if other parties could stand in elections, which candidates they can run and which votes were valid. A very important characteristic is that it is the party, not the state, which control the armed forces, courts, police and intelligence services. The Communist party under Leninism effectively becomes "the de facto state", the country it controls might superficially have many of the bells and whistles of a free country, but they are rendered moot by the party's control.

No one is this stupid. You can't actually think this is a gotcha.

Capitalism has been a tremendous success everywhere it has ever been implemented. Communism has failed abjectly every time it has ever been implemented. Capitalism has seen standards of living in capitalist nations increase a thousandfold. Even paupers today in capitalist nations enjoy unprecedented prosperity which was denied to the kings of yesteryear. In communist nations, people eat garbage because there is no food in the supermarkets.

That you refused to answer the question suggests that maybe it is a "gotcha".

Maybe one of your comrades will answer my question instead.

Kwestion for Kommies:

Has there ever been a Communist country with robust freedom of religion and/or free speech?

Well said!