Comment by ericmay

> Your second paragraph sounds like you're using IKEA and Chipotle as the measure of whether something is communist. You're putting corporatism on the same side as communism. At a minimum, that's not a historically accurate standard.

Apologies if that was your interpretation of my comment as that wasn't my intention, and certainly not my belief. It's a bit like trying to figure out if Bitcoin is money or a store of value or something else. The art styles, well lack of them, and the blandness of the buildings is less about corporatism (which is more appropriately captured in Suburbia - fragile supply chains, government grid planning) and more about how communism and similar ideologies suppress individuality.

The reason it's a bit hard to parse is because corporate America is the instrument in which some of these ideologies are expressed. It's not the source of them which is easy to confuse. To a large extent corporations just give the people what they want at a profit. In my view.

> They were painting the same steppes, but after the fall of communism, they also painted the flowers, not just the grass.

I think that's a really good way insight (I've never seen the paintings just going off of your comment). You can see how communism suppressed artistic vision and creativity because, as you are aware, with authoritarian ideologies you have to suppress expression since it's dangerous to the established regime.