It’s as close to an iron-clad law of the internet as anything could be. Anytime a person makes a critique of capitalism on social media or the comment section of a blog or news post, someone else will respond thusly:
“Capitalism isn’t perfect but it's the best system we have, socialism just doesn’t work.”
“Everywhere Communism has been tried, it’s failed.”
“Communism killed 100 million people, is that what you want?”
“If you hate capitalism so much, why don’t you move to Venezuela or Cuba?”
So on and so on, variations on a theme. It’s important to note that a person need not mention socialism, or even be an actual socialist to elicit these responses. Merely the implication that some aspects of our capitalist society are more harmful than they need be is all it takes to make a certain kind of person feel like they need to educate the world on the dangers of communism/socialism.
No one comes to the internet in search of the fabled “free exchange of ideas”. They come to the internet to shout at each other and into the void in the hope that out of this black box of entangled disembodied minds comes a bit of validation. A simple thumbs up or a heart will do. Arguing about communism and socialism on the internet is not a matter of convincing your opponent, it’s about confirming what you already believe.
Especially when it comes to communism and/or socialism.
So, while it’s prudent to avoid the trap of believing that interactions and conversations on the internet represent the size of either side barking across the chasm of American discourse, they can help us understand the nature of certain arguments and give us a map to where they came from. This is true of anti-trans bigotry and the reactionary pushback to minorities and women being the subject of history in classrooms, but it’s especially true of Marxist political and economic theory. So that’s what we are going to look at today.
The Real World
Perhaps the first thing to understand about the stock internet arguments against communism is that they are not isolated to the right wing of American political discourse. Anti-communism is the most prominent liturgical practice born from our national religion of capitalism. With the solemn monks at the Heritage Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and others meditating over their copies of The Road to Serfdom and crafting polemics against the ever-present threat of worker power communism.
As such, much of the common phraseology of anti-communism is baked into the assumptions of liberals and even self-described progressives. People who can’t deny the contradictions of arch-capitalist dogma but can’t bring themselves to advocate for any radical alternative. They will often argue for a kinder and gentler form of capitalism, tempered by strong yet measured government regulation. Or maybe they will tilt at the windmill of quixotic “Stakeholder Capitalism”, where huge firms will autonomously operate in the best interests of the general public over profit…for reasons.
This is because for many in America and across the Western world, capitalism is not a man-made social construction or just one kind of philosophy of political economy. It’s a natural fact of functional social life. It’s akin to gravity, a force of nature that may at times be circumvented for the expediency of human development but nevertheless, a natural law that must be respected, lest the American public find themselves in a Wile E. Coyote situation.
This conception of capitalism as the natural state of functional society is evidenced by America’s “victory” in the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union. As well as the economic and political turmoil that often afflicts states with any nominal commitment to socialist values. It’s substantiated by the idea that capitalism is the economic system that most reflects the reality of human nature. The most cynical explanation is that human beings are naturally greedy and driven by self-interest and capitalism is best equipped to harness that greed to productive ends while tempering its worst impulses through perfect market competition.
Spoiler Alert: This is all bullshit.
These assumptions of capitalism as a natural condition aren’t based on any rigorous historical or anthropological inquiry. They are merely a set of largely unsubstantiated truisms that lead one to a particular logical conclusion about political economy. That is, trying to replace or even slightly change capitalism as the dominant mode of economic production and distribution is just like a cartoon coyote trying to run across a canyon in hopes of catching a fast bird with a shit-eating grin.
It’s an abdication of human responsibility for harm caused by the inadequate system we have collectively chosen to address human needs. The British philosopher Mark Fisher calls this “Capitalist Realism” and in his aptly titled 2009 book Capitalist Realism he describes it as such:
“Capitalism is what is left when beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration, and all that is left is the consumer-spectator, trudging through the ruins and the relics.”
Many of the arguments against communism on the internet are based on the idea that capitalism somehow exists outside the realm of social construction and the best we can do is make the best individual choices we can within the possibilities offered by the market. This assumption forms the basis of basic American political education and is reflected in the reactionary takes one may encounter in internet discourse. But in keeping with the analogy of capitalism as the national religion, it's important to understand that these arguments are more a statement of faith than an actual argument.
“I’m a winner, I can feel it!”
In fact, none of the statements at the beginning of this piece are arguments. They are affirmations. Mantras that are to be repeated in the face of non-believers. They are not meant to convince but rather to affirm a commitment to a perceived reality. Whether that reality is substantiated by facts or not.
A consistent factor in all of these internet arguments against communism and socialism is that they flatten historical events and economic outcomes into extremely simplistic terms that are nearly impossible to refute similarly. This is why the internet is such fertile ground for reactionary discourse. It’s easy to say that communism is bad in 140 characters or less, much less so to provide a digestible version of historical materialism in response.
In practice, this leads people arguing against communism/socialism to position everything bad that happens in capitalist nations as something bad done to capitalism and everything bad that happens in nominally socialist or communist countries as something bad caused by socialism or communism. For instance, famines that happen in capitalist countries or countries existing under the auspices of capitalist nations are always a function of natural and unpredictable circumstances, while famines that have occurred in nations with a nominally communist or socialist valence are always purely the result of anti-capitalist policy.
In reality, famine was a routine fact of life in pre-industrial society. China suffered no fewer than 1,828 recorded famines in its history with only one (the most famous one) coming after its communist revolution, and since the violent, cruel, and short-sighted process of industrialization that was the Great Leap Forward famine is no longer a routine event. The arch-capitalist denizens of the New Optimist movement in political philosophy are quick to point to the reduction in world poverty occurring over the last 50 years or so without mentioning that the bulk of that poverty reduction has taken place in nominally communist China.
None of this context matters for purposes of arguing about communism or socialism on the internet because just that last paragraph was 617 characters long, more than four times the artist formerly known as Twitter’s 140-character limit.
You’ll notice that I keep placing the word “nominally” before communist or socialist countries. This is because the reactionary drive to oversimplify complex political and economic events around the world provides another beneficial function to conservative online arguments against leftist politics. It allows anti-communist debaters to define communism and socialism as well as identify communist and socialist states based on perception and rhetoric rather than actual policy and political practice.
Perhaps the best example of this is the continued invocation of Venezuela as an example of the tendency of socialist economies to fail. It’s not unfair to characterize Venezuela as a socialist country. Former president and perpetual conservative boogeyman Hugo Chavez was a socialist and his most notorious accomplishment was the nationalization of his country's oil industry with the proceeds from petroleum exports going to fund national social programs.
The argument against Venezuela’s socialist experiment is simple and stark. They nationalized their primary export and source of revenue and federal mismanagement of that resource combined with overspending on social programs and the ill-advised printing of money for the continued funding of said programs have led to an economic crisis marked by extreme inflation, starvation, rampant crime, and corruption. For the right and center in America, this was all the evidence needed to blame the economic philosophy of socialism and justify a coup on humanitarian grounds. Again it's all pretty simple.
Unless you complicate matters like political policy wonk Matt Bruenig by noting that by the policy metrics used to designate Venezuela as a socialist country, Norway is actually much more socialist of state. They too boast a federally owned oil industry with the proceeds going to a capital fund that the Norwegian government calls “the people’s money, owned by everyone, divided equally and for generations to come.” If you think of socialism as public ownership of the means of production, Norway’s public ownership of a third of business equity and 60% of the nation's wealth sounds like a Marxist paradise.
And yet Norway ranks 12th on the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index. For context America is 25th. Claiming that socialism ruins economies by using Venezuela as an example is what we like to call an incoherent argument. But that’s only because it’s not an actual argument. It’s an affirmation. “Socialism has never worked whenever it’s been tried.” And if that is true, then Norway definitionally cannot be socialist, and Venezuela’s problems can all be blamed on socialism.
I mean…it certainly can’t be the sanctions.
How to Win Friends and Alienate Short Attention Spans
There’s an old adage on the internet: “The Left can't meme.” What this means is that while conservatives can produce social media content with high memetic value, that is being able to express a relatively complex idea with simple images and a small amount of text, liberals and leftists often post long text heavy screeds that no one is really bothered to read.
Now of course there are good liberal and leftist memes, but this adage largely holds true and is demonstrative of the advantage conservatives have while arguing over social media. Conservatives are arguing for a return to a previous hegemonic reality. They don’t really have to explain themselves. They just need to affirm what they believe everyone else already believes, because of decades of culture telling them that it's true.
The left, meanwhile, is trying to push heterodox thought. Our job is to take what appears on the surface to be pretty simple truisms and complicate them if not outright prove them false. This is an uphill battle. Especially on social media which favors a reactionary discourse over an analytical one.
Instead, we turn to YouTube, podcasts, and independent publications like this one, (please like and subscribe) where long-form context is expected and welcome. Especially on Youtube where the cadre of video creators essentially produce mini documentaries focused on demystifying leftist theory and responding to the simplistic banality of popular conservative discourse.
This is not to say that conservatives don’t have a presence in these corners of the internet. Conservative commentators like Tim Poole, Jordan Peterson, and the whole Daily Wire gang garner millions of views on YouTube with the same affirmative and simplistic messaging. But they don’t dominate these platforms. In fact, far from chasing leftist discourse away, an entire cottage industry has popped up on YouTube dedicated to debunking PragerU videos.
This kind of content is more time-consuming and expensive to produce than mean-spirited memes about how socialists also participate in capitalism. For some of the biggest names in leftist online content, carefully chosen sponsorships and reader support have allowed them to make online debate a full-time job. The next time someone chides you about what you plan to do with a worthless art history or women's studies degree, show them Contrapoints’ subscriber numbers.
Of course, the problem is that you have to actively seek this kind of content or rely on the algorithm to send it your way. Moreover, you need to be willing to sit through a video that can be longer than the average Marvel movie or read a 2500-word article on your favorite substack (hint). This presents a disadvantage when the opposition can just throw endless misappropriations of Orwell at your phone screen.
When it comes to arguing about communism and socialism on the internet, or anything from trans rights to Black history, context is vital. The left largely recognizes that out of necessity but it also means the most compelling counterarguments to conservative simple affirmations are buried under hours of theory and history, which doesn’t help any of this go viral.
I’m not saying that this is a losing battle, but this battle is not going to be won in the comment section of your local town Facebook group. It’s not memetic arguments that will break the conservative hegemonic hold over people's perceptions of communism and socialism but rather the increasingly undeniable evidence that capitalism has a rapidly approaching shelf life. The value of leftist internet content is not its ability to convince worshipers at the altar of Milton Friedman that their god is a false one, but in providing a detailed explanation for what people are actually experiencing in their day-to-day lives. An explanation that resolves the glaring contradictions contained within the right’s simplistic affirmations.
I began writing this substack because I realized that social media debate was not really an effective place to make leftist arguments. I still do it because I’m terminally online and addicted to the dopamine hit that comes with the perfect clapback to conservative bullshit. But at the same time, it's important to give these discussions the room they need to include all the history and nuance necessary to say something smart and true about political economy. I’m honored that a decent amount of people have shown an appetite for this kind of content, and I’m going to keep it coming for as long as I have fingers and access to Elon’s internet.
Solidarity Forever.
Mr. Vicks,
I just read this essay, having found my way here after reading your book review of Blair LM Kelly's 'Black Folk: The Roots of The Black Working Class' for Jacobin, both very much worth the time. Thank you.
I think this observation is spot on:
"When it comes to arguing about communism and socialism on the internet, or anything from trans rights to Black history, context is vital. The left largely recognizes that out of necessity but it also means the most compelling counterarguments to conservative simple affirmations are buried under hours of theory and history, which doesn’t help any of this go viral."
My view is that any effort to 'combat conservative simple affirmations' is not directed at dissuading any who would embrace those simple affirmations in the first place. We're not here to win debates with fascists, who are only engaged in an absurd pantomime of reasoned arguments in any case-- we're here to expose fascism and fascists in all their guises, and alert all those who are natural allies to the urgent threat fascism poses to the cause of pluralistic democracy.
A just, equitable society will necessarily be socialist, predicated on the dismantling of transnational capitalism.
It is no coincidence that transnational capitalism is the medium in which, and mechanism by which, fascism is expressed. I wrote about this functional and historical relation between capitalism and fascism a few years back here, focusing on work by W.E.B. DuBois and Samir Amin:
'Capitalism and fascism share the same roots in colonialism, and their modern home is the GOP.' (Nov. 23, 2020)
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/23/1997759/-Capitalism-and-fascism-share-the-same-roots-in-colonialism-and-their-modern-home-is-the-GOP
"Before his death, political economist Samir Amin elucidated the attempts to obscure how capitalism and fascism are symbiotic:
'The Return of Fascism in Contemporary Capitalism'
Samir Amin/ Monthly Review' Sept. 1, 2014
"Political movements that can rightly be called fascist were in the forefront and exercised power in a number of European countries, particularly during the 1930s up to 1945. These included Italy’s Benito Mussolini, Germany’s Adolf Hitler, Spain’s Francisco Franco, Portugal’s António de Oliveira Salazar, France’s Philippe Pétain, Hungary’s Miklós Horthy, Romania’s Ion Antonescu, and Croatia’s Ante Pavelic. The diversity of societies that were the victims of fascism—both major developed capitalist societies and minor dominated capitalist societies, some connected with a victorious war, others the product of defeat—should prevent us from lumping them all together. I shall thus specify the different effects that this diversity of structures and conjunctures produced in these societies.
Yet, beyond this diversity, all these fascist regimes had two characteristics in common:
(1) In the circumstances, they were all willing to manage the government and society in such a way as not to call the fundamental principles of capitalism into question, specifically private capitalist property, including that of modern monopoly capitalism. That is why I call these different forms of fascism particular ways of managing capitalism and not political forms that challenge the latter’s legitimacy, even if “capitalism” or “plutocracies” were subject to long diatribes in the rhetoric of fascist speeches. The lie that hides the true nature of these speeches appears as soon as one examines the “alternative” proposed by these various forms of fascism, which are always silent concerning the main point—private capitalist property. It remains the case that the fascist choice is not the only response to the challenges confronting the political management of a capitalist society. It is only in certain conjunctures of violent and deep crisis that the fascist solution appears to be the best one for dominant capital, or sometimes even the only possible one. The analysis must, then, focus on these crises.
(2) The fascist choice for managing a capitalist society in crisis is always based—by definition even—on the categorical rejection of “democracy.” Fascism always replaces the general principles on which the theories and practices of modern democracies are based—recognition of a diversity of opinions, recourse to electoral procedures to determine a majority, guarantee of the rights of the minority, etc.—with the opposed values of submission to the requirements of collective discipline and the authority of the supreme leader and his main agents. This reversal of values is then always accompanied by a return of backward-looking ideas, which are able to provide an apparent legitimacy to the procedures of submission that are implemented."
//
We agree that "context is vital".
In that vein, I can imagine few resources more valuable than the writing of Prof. Cedric Robinson, whose historical and philosophical work I wrote about here:
'Black Marxism': To fight economic inequality, fight systemic economic racism (long read).' (Nov. 1, 2017)
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/1/1708243/--Black-Marxism-To-fight-economic-inequality-fight-systemic-economic-racism-long-read
"If we learn to see the pervasive presence of these philosophical pretenses and maneuvers, and how they perpetuate systems of inequality, how they are a crucial element of white male heterosexual dominance in society, we arrive at another conclusion: to dismantle systems of inequality and dominance, we must dismantle the intellectual edifice upon which they are constructed.
Cedric J. Robinson sets about to do just that in 'Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition.'
Robinson explicates the intent of his book this way in his preface:
This work is about our people's struggle, the historical Black struggle. It takes as a first premise that for a people to survive in struggle it must be on its own terms: the collective wisdom which is a synthesis of culture and the experience of that struggle. The shared past is precious, not for itself, but because it is the basis of consciousness, of knowing, of being. It cannot be traded in exchange for expedient alliances or traduced by convenient abstractions or dogma. It contains philosophy, theories of history, and social prescriptions native to it. It is a construct possessing its own terms, exacting its own truths. I have attempted here to demonstrate its authority. More particularly, I have investigated the failed efforts to render the historical being of Black peoples into a construct of historical materialism, to signify our existence as merely an opposition to capitalist organization. We are that (because we must be) but much more."
The scope of the book evokes awe:
"Black Marxism is far more ambitious than its modest title implies, for what Cedric Robinson has written extends well beyond the history of the Black Left or Black radical movements. Combining political theory, history, philosophy, cultural analysis, and biography, among other things, Robinson literally rewrites the history of the rise of the West from ancient times to the mid-twentieth century, tracing the roots of Black radical thought to a shared epistemology among diverse African people and providing a withering critique of Western Marxism and its inability to comprehend either the racial character of capitalism and the civilization in which it was born or mass movements outside Europe. At the very least, Black Marxism challenges our "commonsense" about the history of modernity, nationalism, capitalism, radical ideology, the origins of Western racism, and the worldwide Left from the 1848 revolutions to the present…
… capitalism emerged within the feudal order and grew in fits and starts, flowering in the cultural soil of the West-most notably in the racialism that has come to characterize European society. Capitalism and racism, in other words, did not break from the old order but rather evolved from it to produce a modern world system of "racial capitalism" dependent on slavery, violence, imperialism, and genocide. So Robinson not only begins in Europe; he also chips away at many of the claims and assertions central to European historiography, particularly of the Marxist and liberal varieties." (from the foreward, pp. xii-xiii)
But this scope, aside from how it demonstrates Robinson’s prodigious intellect, and the breadth and depth of his scholarly research, is simply what is required to develop what is a complete philosophical framework, one that stands in opposition to ‘traditional Western philosophy’, an edifice constructed by the Greeks, and their European inheritors, and which has no place for people of color or women in its moral or political scheme..."
Best regards,
IDR
i loved reading this.... it goes toward the biggest spaces i haven't filled in yet, concerning the vision people on the true left, like you, have for our future way of organizing and governing our economy. it's clear when you give us your analysis of venezuela and norway, and where those countries and ours stack up on the economic freedom index. maybe the heritage foundation doesn't even realize its own blind spot..... you really make clear how deft, really brilliant, the right is in bundling everything they don't like into one package and calling it capitalism, or woke.... all the babies down the tube with the bathwater...(sorry).... i'm really looking forward to knowing more about the mechanics of your vision of how a worker controlled economy would work. that's not what norway is, right? why wouldn't a norway model work for us?