Forum user: We chose capitalism, and it brought us war

We were offered a choice between communism and capitalism, and the choice brought us war

The opening diagnosis is sharp: predatory capitalism demands more raw materials, living space, consumers, and labor, and this drive does not stop. Two versions of the same system—one new, one old—are competing for hegemony today, risking a third world war and the possibility of a nuclear conflagration. The thesis is not new, but the packaging is: the speaker insists that the communism we knew only encouraged wars of colonial emancipation or extractive elites subservient to ex-colonial powers.

What is discussed when saying communism

The first clash is semantic. It is recalled that there is no socialism in Russia and that if there were communism, this would not be happening. The response comes as an inventory: Soviet military operations in Afghanistan, the invasions of Poland and Finland during World War II, and the entry with tanks into Hungary and Czechoslovakia. All of this, it is argued, in the name of liberation. The rebuttal does not wait: it was so they would not become today’s Ukraines.

Some go further, arguing that capitalism and communism are not antagonistic, but part of a historical evolution with a phase of socialism in between. If society does not evolve, this current warns, it will regress as resources deplete, and we will return to feudalism, with total control through technology. The Middle Ages, they joke, at least allowed one to flee to the woods and escape the serfdom of feudal lords.

Private property as deprivation of rights

The most developed argument in the thread points to property as a concept prior to capitalism and money. Private property, it is claimed, is the deprivation of others’ rights and establishes a late-medieval feudalism. It is even argued that two hundred years ago, there was more individual freedom, because common goods were still managed collectively at the local level and had not been accumulated by a minority described as degenerate and corrupt.

In response, there are accusations of economic illiteracy and a defense that the problem is not capitalism but its scarcity: it is because it is not capitalist enough, not the other way around. The controversy shifts to the very definition of capital. The dictionary is consulted to recall that capital is, among other things, estate, wealth, assets, and a set of goods destined to generate greater wealth. The response is a reproach for narrow-mindedness and a request to reread the beginning.

The conspiratorial turn and its debunking

In the final part, the thesis appears that the true operator is not the system but the banks, and that blaming the tool instead of those who wield it diverts attention from the origin of evil. The counter-rebuttal is direct: it is childish to believe any conspiracy against reality, and it is secondary whether that elite is composed of Jews or gentiles, Roma or non-Roma. What matters, it insists, is that a social class exercises its economic power over the population.

The exchange tightens when theories are asked to be exposed to their ultimate consequences and compared with Marx’s, already known. The refusal to develop the argument is interpreted as a lack of dialectical depth. The discussion practically ends with an abandonment and a farewell thanks.

Ukraine, NATO, and the right to choose

The other major axis is geopolitical. It is defended that Ukraine, as a sovereign country, has the right to enter Europe, NATO, and whatever else it wishes, and that Russia has no say in what it must do. The underlying argument: Ukrainians have seen how their Polish neighbors live and how they have pogre since joining Europe, and they want the same.

The objection is that if one starts from the premise that wars caused by communist regimes are wars of colonial liberation and those by capitalist countries are for resources and living space, everything fits. The problem, it is replied, is that it is not true. And a diagnosis is added about the activism itself: it is unwilling to accept the truth even when it is right in front of its eyes, and any criticism of the socialist system is seen as malicious information or enemy propaganda.

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The most plausible prediction, with all reservations, is that the disagreement will not be resolved with data. No one has moved a single figure. And meanwhile, the underlying question remains unanswered: if the system we had really worked, why was it not allowed for the world to see it?