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Strong “I can fix him” energy out there.
It can definitely be argued that capitalists themselves fucking hate capitalism.
That was a brilliant read.
I appreciated the nuance, and it even added a lot of perspective to the notion that Adam Smith’s “capitalism” concept was not the evil and inhuman machine we experience today.
I’ve noticed this move to “technofeudalism” everywhere but didn’t have a name for it. It’s exhausting seeing how many services, products, businesses, whatever, all simply want to coast on monthly payments and lock-ins for what amounts to merely keeping the lights on.
The PetsMart thing was insidious. This surely solidifies the definition of “human resources”: Seeking to control people as “assets” that generate profits like (proprietary) batteries.
It seems it should be a priority goal to undermine the corporate and wealthy’s dominion over “assets.” They’d be terrified of this, as they might actually have to do something besides acquire everyone else’s hard work for a change!
The flaw in capitalism and the flaw that makes it unmanageable is how over time capitalism will find ways to extract more for less.
This will always fall to the workers. The recent recession had tax payers bail out the banks as well as pay bonuses. all because banks got very greedy.
Its not a flaw, its working as planned. But yeah, our “market solutions”, basically any problem created by capitalism just gets exploited for profit. Even when the economy crashes its actually a good thing for the very rich, as it " disciplines" labor, moves people down and out of the middle class which lowers wages systematically, takes out a few competitors, etc.,
Even when the economy crashes its actually a good thing for the very rich, as it " disciplines" labor, moves people down and out of the middle class which lowers wages systematically, takes out a few competitors, etc.,
If you look at it, every crisis always results in transfer of wealth up. Covid was the biggest up to date.
deleted by creator
That’s a main feature dude!
There are other things unmanageable.
Like a nuclear superpower with vast fertile southern lands fit for growing grapes, sea access with fishing fleet, and all such, which had a significant part of population under threat of scurvy. Because capitalism makes logistics work, it’s the reason European colonial empires could exist.
Or the same nuclear superpower, which boasted widespread literacy and all that, except that conveniently ignored Central Asian areas mostly busy with growing, collecting and processing cotton. Damn right, my dear. These were, ahem, not very developed even in 1991.
Or the same nuclear superpower, which had a powerful standardization apparatus, but when you look at its tank models or anything else, the components which could be interchangeable were just slightly incompatible. They were designed by people with the same kind of education and understanding and context, for the same purpose, but, first, every defense plant or research institute or something wanted to have their standard and they did get it, second, due to secrecy and vertical administrative structure there were little communication between them.
Or a system of logistics, that turned into shit the moment that superpower decided to leave the chat, leaving populations of whole countries foraging for wood to not freeze at winter.
Capitalism works differently, because it (any human actually, you included) tries to get more with less. Non-market instruments are supposed to constrain it to doing that only honestly.
I would never advocate for a super power, I want a classless society, this means no political class either.
“Political Class” isn’t really a thing, though, unless you’re replacing Class with Category, in which case “plumber” and “janitor” would be distinct classes. Administration and management are forms of labor, and are necessary in large-scale complex production, even Anarchists concede this.
I wish this was true. But as seen in history a class does developed around the political leader. This is why the country cried with the death of Stalin, he was a god to the workers. This isn’t how the vanguard should look in the push towards a classless society.
In what manner is it not?
Edit to respond to your edit: I think you are confusing power with classes, and hierarchy with classes. A class is defined by its social relation to the Means of Production, a CEO can technically be proletarian if they are merely employed by the board and have no ownership. There is hierarchy, and unequal power, but the relation to Capital is fundamentally different as the M-C-M’ circuit does not directly funnel into their pockets like it would with Capitalists.
Sorry I edited my response
I edited mine as well, I’ll copy and paste it here for coherence:
I think you are confusing power with classes, and hierarchy with classes. A class is defined by its social relation to the Means of Production, a CEO can technically be proletarian if they are merely employed by the board and have no ownership. There is hierarchy, and unequal power, but the relation to Capital is fundamentally different as the M-C-M’ circuit does not directly funnel into their pockets like it would with Capitalists.
Well, we’ll see a lot of things tried.
If you’ve heard of the “new Medieval” concept, we are approaching it.
I like Star Wars as a really prophetic piece of culture (before Disney of course).
So - there was the original trilogy, with the set of symbols that is normal for us today, but wasn’t when the first movie came out. In some sense it warned of what would happen for more than a decade after it.
And there was the prequel trilogy, which it seems to be a fashion of calling stupid and bad, and Attack of the Clones is often called the worst movie of the prequels. Well, in implementation it may be not too good, but just like the original trilogy’s second movie is the deepest, the prequel trilogy’s second movie is the deepest. AotC too was prophetic, and in that prophecy we live right now.
Now there’s that issue with chronology, where the order of events is different, but it can be anything. It’s symbolic art, not a chart. In real life events can happen in any order.
So - Lucas wanted to make three more movies (discarding Disney crap), after RotJ chronologically. I don’t know what these would be, but logically AotC’s philosophy is between ESB’s and something which would look like that “new Medieval” I’ve remembered. BTW, it’s not a nice thing. Just inevitable in opinions of some people.
LOL, a post out of nothing.
Lol I see what you’re getting at, but I’d argue that those (incredibly fun!) movies seem “prophetic” only by the same quality that makes them relatable and profound:
They’re inspired by history. Just one example being how the prequel trilogy bears heavy resemblance to the governmental structure of ancient Rome, before, like Rome, collapsing from the inside from in-fighting and profiteering in an attempt to control the whole Galaxy, before becoming basically like various monarchies throughout history, that almost succeed in ruling the world (galaxy) by monolithic force.
It’s why Firefly was such a success, when it flipped and futurized the American civil / revolutionary wars concept. It gives us something familiar enough to attach to, with twists that make it unique.
Edit: I welcome historians to correct any errors in my rather generalized understanding of history. I tried to get the point across while resisting research rabbit holes. ;)
Never in my life have I seen someone call Star Wars prophetic before this moment.
Don’t turn it into Harry Potter. SW has seen enough pain as it is.
Yes exactly.
I mean, not around here?
We don’t have a lot of dyed in the wool capitalists on Lemmy, so I see a lot less of that sentiment here. On Lemmy we have way more issues with full-on-tankies than right wingers.
The rest of the internet, though? Oh yeah.
We don’t have a lot of dyed in the wool capitalists on Lemmy
*dyed in the wool liberals
Liberalism is the philosophy of capitalism, capitalists are people who owns significant amounts of capital.
Capitalism is owning the means of production - which isn’t limited to billionaires. Almost everybody who has a retirement plan is a capitalist because retirement funds invest in stocks, bonds, etc. Everyone with a savings account is a capitalist - they are supplying money the bank loans to other people, which is where savings account interest comes from. To honestly avoid being a capitalist you’d have to have no money or keep it in a mattress.
everybody who has a retirement plan is a capitalist because retirement funds invest in stocks, bonds, etc.
The term you’re looking for is petite bourgeoisie: people who do get some income by owning slivers of the means of production, but who also have to live by selling their labor. Someone who has investments purely for retirement purposes is straining the lower bounds of that definition.
Everyone with a savings account is a capitalist
Change in your pocket is not anywhere close to owning the means of production.
If you really think about it anyone with hands is a capitalist.
User: “we don’t have a lot of problems with capitalists here”
Also user: immediately starts to shit on a flavour of socialism
Usually complaining about “tankies” is just another way to hate Socialism, the Red Scare never ended and being aware of it doesn’t make you immune to its effects in any capacity. “Left” anticommunists have a long legacy and have done immense damage to Socialism worldwide.
Blackshirts and Reds is phenomenal in total, but specifically the subsection Anticommunism & Wonderland should be necessary reading.
Not disagreeing with the wider point about the Red Scare, but here specifically I’ve seen more issues with tankies supporting authoritarian regimes - up to and including saying that North Korea should “reclaim” South Korea and the like - than I have the rest of the political spectrum entirely, except for maybe centrist both-siders. There’s the occasional MAGA chud trying to spew nonsense, but they seem to be pretty rare.
There are certain tankie instances that other servers have defederated for a reason.
It’s worth noting that I’ve seen far more people thinking of citizens of North Korea as pitiful subhumans than support for the DPRK in general, and fewer still who support the DPRK extending to the ROK. The “tankie” instances end up just being regular Marxist and Anarchist instances.
It’s crazy to see the degree of vile racism aimed at North Koreans. They’re straight up not acknowledged as human beings with any individual intelligence or agency.
Saw a thread over on Sopuli that made me want to throw up, there are many people here that don’t see Koreans as human beings. They speak of North Koreans the same way European colonialists spoke of African peoples (and still do, but in secret usually), and blame the DPRK for being the target of genocide by the US.
Given what’s become of Palestine, I’m increasingly sympathetic to DPRK militarism.
Absolutely. The DPRK is no utopia, but the brutal starvation tactics of US imposed sanctions and the utter obliteration and genocide they are working their way up from deserves immense sympathy and understanding.
Aye, but it’s pretty telling of what the political spectrum is like on Lemmy when we can say that the crazies on that end of the spectrum are more frequent than the MAGA cultists. Not that I mind the lack of the far-right nutjobs, mind you. Their absence is one of the reasons I’m here.
The real crazy genocide denying leftists seem largely relegated to one particular instance anyway, and defederating that seems to make a big difference in your feed.
The real crazy genocide denying leftists
We’re right here, actually, and we do indeed deny Western Cold War II bullshit propaganda.
.
It doesn’t reflect well on your media literacy to still be accepting this stuff uncritically, especially given how Western corporate media has been misreporting on an actual, ongoing genocide in our name. Not to mention Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, or the thousand other lies in the twenty years between.I was trying not to name drop, but I was referring to the Stalin-stans over on Hexbear who say that he didn’t do anything wrong, and if he did do it, then they deserved it.
Nor did I say anything about Saddam or Bush’s photos of the bomb from Die Hard that they used as evidence of WMDs, but go ahead and use me as That Guy and go off, queen.
Seeing how this thread is going and what posts and users have been deleted/banned, I can see where this is heading and I’m just gonna go ahead and block .ml. Enjoy your chapo-trap or whatever.
The first sentence of “Tankies” by Roderic Day over on Red Sails explains that no one actually believes Stalin did nothing wrong. That’s a combination of Hexbear being more of a Communist and Anarchist hangout than a Communist party. It’s the internet. What people generally mean is that Stalin did not kill 100 million people, and his actual historical role was as a leader of the world’s first Socialist state, and as such has had piles and piles of myths distorting the real facts of his life by Western propagandists.
Stalin-stans over on Hexbear who say that he didn’t do anything wrong, and if he did do it, then they deserved it.
Hexbear’s flavor of irony-poisoned humor does confuse some people. But Stalin didn’t do nearly as many things “wrong” as cold war propaganda told us. Even contemporary Western historians see Stalin in a very different light than corporate media, airport books, and popular culture do.
Edit to add: And to be specific, “double genocide theory” was Nazi propaganda, which you’re continuing to propagate.
Of course Korea has to be reunited. The south has been under US control since the end of WWII, taking control after the Japanese
Yep, hopefully Korea can be liberated from the US.
I don’t know if something can be done soon with all the shit happening in Republic of Korea
I remain hopeful.
My friend, there is an ideological ocean between “workers should collectively own the means of production” and “we need an authoritarian state with a monopoly on violence to enforce communism.”
Step 1: workers collectively own means of production
Leads to Step 2: yanks attack you
Leads to Step 3: Establish a state with a monopoly on violence to kill all the yanks
I swear to god westerners have had over a hundred years to read The State and Revolution and we’re still having the same dumb fucking argument.
In the time y’all take to talk shit about any revolution that actually succeeds you could have read about twenty books on the subject.
There’s an ideological ocean between utopian socialism and actually-existing socialism, yes. There’s a reason why there’s not been a successful historical instance of socialism in which workers collectivised without taking the power of the state in their hands.
Calling it “authoritarian state” kinda portrays lack of knowledge at democratic power structures and mechanisms in former socialist countries. Examples for the USSR: highest unionisation rates in the world, announcement/news boarboards in every workplace administered by the union, free education to the highest level for everyone, free healthcare, guaranteed employment and housing (how do the supposedly “authoritarian leaders” benefit from that?), neighbour commissions legally overviewing the activity and transparency of local administration, neighbour tribunals dealing with most petty crime, millions of members of the party, women’s rights, local ethnicities in different republics having an option to education in their language and widespread availability of reading material and newspapers in their language… Please tell me one country that does that better nowadays
Current western Europe (Germany in particular) still has free education, free Healthcare, guaranteed housing, legalized LGBT marriage and weed, and many things more, and you don’t go to Siberia for making a joke about the leader.
Union and party membership were obligatory BTW, if you didn’t want to be labeled as a troublemaker.
European countries are under fascist rules right now it’s terrible. And many still die of hunger or improper housing or hygiene. I’m thinking particularly about France because I’m from there, but Germany has similar issues
Harz IV, bro.
Lmao, Germany has guaranteed housing?! Germany has Vonovia, a company that hoards real estate and rents it in terrible conditions, and own about 500k+ houses. In what universe does Germany have guaranteed housing when Berlin tried to implement a directly democratically voted rent cap on housing and it got repelled by the tribunals a year after it began?
Free healthcare in Germany is absolute bullshit. Yes, it’s free, but the quality of healthcare is astonishingly low. I’ve had the misfortune of living there for a few years, and the whole system is horrendous, especially for how ludicrously expensive it is compared to other European countries. In Germany, you have sick senior people queuing at 7AM in frosty winter mornings STANDING ON THE STREETS to be able to see the family doctor, you can consider yourself lucky if you can wait sitting in a stairwell indoors while waiting for the doctor. It’s beyond me how German people aren’t constantly on the street complaining about this bullshit, again especially given the absurdly high costs of public healthcare there.
Funny that you also mention freedom of speech, when in Germany they are literally arresting Jewish people for expressing antizionist and pro-Palestinian points of view. The actual Nazis run rampant though, friends of the police if not outright members of it, with an extreme rise of the far right.
Harz IV guarantees housing.
Damn, you should tell that to the 700k homeless people in Germany, I’m sure they’ll be happy to know that
It’s not because we have a boner for authority, it’s because history has shown us that, under the current conditions of global capitalist/imperialist hegemony, such a state is a necessary step in the process of reaching a classless society. It’s simply not possible to go directly from where we are right now to where all socialists want to end up. That’s why anarchism has never had a win that’s lasted more than few months before capitalist forces crush it.
Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds:
But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the workers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this “pure socialism” view is ahistorical and nonfalsifiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It compares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage.
The pure socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
The pure socialists had a vision of a new society that would create and be created by new people, a society so transformed in its fundaments as to leave little opportunity for wrongful acts, corruption, and criminal abuses of state power. There would be no bureaucracy or self-interested coteries, no ruthless conflicts or hurtful decisions. When the reality proves different and more difficult, some on the Left proceed to condemn the real thing and announce that they “feel betrayed” by this or that revolution.
we need an authoritarian state with a monopoly on violence
We already have one. Americans just need to keep believing the monopoly is working for them, rather than for their bosses, or the system of compliance falls apart.
I mean this with all sympathy, after all, I used to share views similar to your own before I started taking Marxism seriously, and to dismiss you would be to dismiss myself, and thus the capacity for change. When you simplify Marxism to “workers should collectively own the Means of Production,” you remove the entirety of Marxism, as such a thought was common even pre-Marx. When you simplify AES to “authoritarian states with a monopoly on violence to enforce Communism,” you assume greater knowledge of the practice of building Socialism than the billions of people who have worked tirelessly to bring it into existance for the last century from the inside, not criticizing from afar.
With all due respect, and no “I’ve read more than you so my power level is higher” nonsense, have you read Marx?
With all due respect to theory, I’ve seen too much of it shit all over people who lack education, context, or ability to understand, and basically leaves those people out of the conversation and acts like their opinions don’t matter because they haven’t read the right books or have the right education.
The differences between academic unions and blue-collar unions were always stark to me, and when there was ever any connection between the two, the academics would roll their eyes and be dismissive of the blue-collar people, who may have not always been theory conscious but were good people, a la Samwise Gamgee (in terms of Tolkiens ideas of the kind of good, kind, but simple people he met in WWI). Constantly telling those people that they don’t know enough to be involved isn’t ever really a positive way forward, in my opinion, and anything where it’s forced from the top-down on those people instead of having their input is something I’m against, sorry. You can’t explain away taking away people’s right to input in their own governance with theory, to me.
I’ve read some Marx, but never got my hands on an unabridged copy of Capital, nor did I finish it because it was pretty tedious. I personally think Debord had way more profound things to say, and Society of the Spectacle is the most dog-eared book I own. Mixed with McLuhan’s Understanding Media, I’m actually partial to think communications might actually be neck-and-neck with commodities in terms of importance of understanding them. I mean, Debord thought that too, which is why he thought he would be remembered for his board game Kriegspiel, (a war game focusing on lines of communication) not for SotS.
ve seen too much of it shit all over people who lack education, context, or ability to understand,
It kinda irks me seeing comrades engage with people assuming they’re arguing in good faith and immediately it turns out it’s just unabashed western chauvinism. The fact that you refer to Debord is just the icing on the cake.
I’ve read Debord, guy had a good fifteen page essay hidden inside The Society of the Spectacle and then over a hundred pages of masturbatory inscrutability of the kind Zizek perfected and good old french chauvinism. I put more stock in the works credited by people who actually achieved revolution and then a better quality of life for their nations through them. A social science requires falsifiability.
On the other hand, there is Lenin boiling down in a hundred pages a very thorough understanding of Marxist thought and the critical steps the revolution must take to defend itself as well as the reasons for it. No fluff, no academicist posturing, just keeping in the Marxist tradition of making the subject only as complex as it needs to be. Then he went and fucking proved it with his practice.
Capital isn’t an entry level text, it is a thorough study of the mechanisms of capital, the value form, the objects of financial speculation and their interaction with the real material economy. Critique of the Gotha Programme, The Poverty of Philosophy, The German Ideology, even Socialism: Utopic and Scientific by Engels are thorough, clear, and concise. And they work.
Yea, I try to make it a rule to engage in good-faith almost regardless of what the other person is saying unless it’s clear that nothing can come from it, be it reaching the other person or reaching onlookers. In this case, it was more for the latter.
I am not trying to tell you that your opinions are “invalid” or “worthless.” You raise a good problem well known by actual, practicing Marxists about Western “Marxists” that seek to endlessly critique society without changing it. However, it would be a mistake to not learn from Socialists in the past and present who have a wealth of experience and lifetimes of analysis to draw from. Rather, my goal isn’t telling you that you don’t know enough to be involved, but that I think you are making a critical error in attacking Socialists based on what I believe are misconceptions and misunderstandings, and this hurts leftist movement.
I think if you made an effort to understand what these billions of Socialists believe in and are committed to, you would better understand if their ideas and systems are valid or not. I think without reading theory that you are only going to have an incomplete and partial view, and this, while not delegitimizing your opinions and views, certainly harms the integrity. Celebrating an “end to theory” was something the Socialist Revolutionaries adhered to pre-revolution in Russia, and this was proven a mistake, while the Bolsheviks’ strict adherence to theory and mass worker organization proved correct.
Bud, I’m reading theory, and you’re literally telling me I’m not reading the right theory.
Kinda? If you want to have an opinion of Marxists, I would read Marx and historical accounts by Marxists to even understand better what they are trying to do better, rather than Anarchist critiques of Marxism. Your initial comment came out attacking Marxists, so I tried to contextualize that more.
when there was ever any connection between the two, the academics would roll their eyes and be dismissive of the blue-collar people, who may have not always been theory conscious but were good people, a la Samwise Gamgee
Samwise Gamgee isn’t a good person, he’s a fictitious character in a fantasy novel.
You can’t explain away taking away people’s right to input in their own governance with theory, to me.
You need to have something before it can be taken away from you.
Society of the Spectacle is the most dog-eared book I own.
Then you know the illusion of choice isn’t the same thing as a people’s right to self-governance. And further, that a movement of people in opposition to a media established regime is not stealing their neighbors’ liberty by asserting some of its own.
Not even if all the TVs and radios and newspapers say so.
How could any socialist country protect the workers without a state in 2025?
So you’re saying you only believe hierarchical, authoritarian societies with monopolies on violence are viable societies? Where a strong-man makes the decisions from the top-down for everyone else?
There is no room for decentralization of control or a non-authoritarian dominance? There is no room for socialism grown from the bottom up organically instead of forced from the top down?
Why must the idea of “state” equal “authoritarian state with monopoly on violence?” There is no other such type of state we can imagine? Do we really lack such imagination?
Markets aren’t evil, workers who own the mean of production will still be trading with other groups of workers who own their own means of production. A t-shirt factory will still be trading with a textiles factory. Capitalism just raises the importance of markets to the detriment of pretty much everything else in life.
Hierarchical? Yes, we need administrators, managers, planners, and other forms of necessary hierarchy as we continue to work towards more complex production at larger and larger scales. Even Anarchists concede this point.
Authoritarian? What constitutes “authoritarianism,” any hierarchy? If you oppose all hierarchy, it sounds like you disagree with even mainstream Anarchism, and seek to return to more tribal modes of production, scavenging and whatnot.
Grown “from the bottom-up?” Yes, Marxism has historically been accomplished by Proletarian revolution and organization, it hasn’t succeeded from tiny terrorist cells throwing coups. Mass worker movements are what achieved Socialism.
A “strong-man” making all of the decisions? No, and that’s not how AES states actually existed. Nobody argues for such a method, if that’s a euphamism for full public ownership of property, I ask why you separate the people from the government at that point.
As for the idea of an “authoritarian state with a monopoly on violence,” I don’t know what you specifically mean here. That sounds to me like all states, sans the as-yet undefined “authoritarian” bent. AES is democratic, so there must be something you don’t like but haven’t defined yet. Furthermore, trying to “design” a perfect society is Utopianism, and doesn’t actually focus on how to build Socialism from where we are.
Markets aren’t evil, correct, at low levels of development they are highly useful. However, the goal is full Public Ownership, as Central Planning becomes far more efficient at higher levels of development. A system of “worker coops” would inevitably work towards either a regression into Capitalism or centralization into Socialism, a problem shown and worked out in Anti-Dühring by Engels.
Overall, I think you owe it to yourself to read more historical accounts of AES and how they function, Blackshirts and Reds as I linked earlier is a good start.
A system of “worker coops” would inevitably work towards either a regression into Capitalism or centralization into Socialism
Or have right-wing factions armed and trained by the CIA to overthrow the government and do a bunch of crimes against humanity during the 90s.
I don’t know enough about Yugoslavia’s economy to say whether their coop-centric model was responsible for the stagnation and high unemployment rates.
Yep, that’s the problem with making such a structure the focus of the economy, and not just another element subservient to the Public Sector and government in general. Easy to take advantage of individualists in a cooperative based economy than a collectivized one.
AES is democratic, so there must be something you don’t like but haven’t defined yet.
Well to be fair, I’m probably closer to anarchist than strict socialist because to me decentralization of power and communications is how you solve a lot of this and no societies that exist or have existed have really tried it in the sort of capacities we could try it at this point in history, I believe. There’s just no society who has even come close yet. I do think we were held back slightly technologically and communications have progressed to the level that things can be more decentralized, a la citizen communications like the barbed wire telephone network. I think current iterations of democracy are all really outdated and that there’s been plenty of new options to try but there is no political willpower in any society to pursue those things.
I wouldn’t say I ascribe to Critical Theory, but the general idea of “there is no perfect anything, we must always be critiquing and trying new ways” speaks to me. So hanging our future on 200 year old ideas without any progression or growth of those ideas feels foolhardy to me.
Do you have specific issues with the real democratic structures of AES states that you can point to further decentralization helping with? Most AES countries practice a sort of “top-down, from the bottom-up” form of democracy. Essentially, building “rungs” of councils that start at local levels, elect delegates for regional councils, who elect delegates to further levels as necessary. This is both centralized, in that the highest level has the final say, but decentralized in that the higher levels only make decisions pertaining those lower to them, and can change delegates or practice recall elections. It gets more complex than that, obviously, but this seems as decentralized as is practical.
As for your support for “critiquing everything,” you sound like a Marxist-Leninist. Criticism and Self-Criticism are core concepts of Marxism-Leninism, and the practice of repeating the dialectical materialist cycle of turning theory into practice to refine theory and refine practice is the core to Marxist-Leninist knowledge. The base of Marxism isn’t simply 200 years old, but thousands, it’s a cumulative effort of the early materialists, the early dialecticians, Capitalists like Adam Smith and Ricardo, Utopian Socialists like Owen, Dialectical Idealists like Hegel, and more. We keep Marx’s ideas (and Lenins, etc) inasmuch as they are still valid, and by our analysis they overwhelmingly are. We also add analysis as it becomes more applied, and we see where earlier Socialists, even Marxists, went wrong.
Does that make sense?
complaining about “tankies” is just another way to hate Socialism
Even if you’ve got a legit beef with 1950s Stalinists, the idea that they’ve teleported through time to argue with you in English on a 4th rate social media forum is so fucking self-aggrandizing.
Blackshirts and Reds is phenomenal in total, but specifically the subsection Anticommunism & Wonderland should be necessary reading.
Would that Michael Parenti, David Grabber, and Richard Wolfe had been as ravenously consumed by Americans as Milton Friedman, David Brooks, and Anne Coulter.
Removed by mod
My sentiments exactly. Couldn’t have said it better.
No, everyone doesn’t hate capitalism.
Yeah alot of them love capitalism so hard, while simultaneously bemoaning every single part of capitalism, while being too stupid to be convinced the two are connected.
what no class consciousness does to a mfit’s a question of education. They’re not stupid, but ignorant
To be honest, I have never meant the word stupid to mean anything outside of “decided they already know everything and have thus stop allowing themselves capable of learning”, I dont believe anyone is actually stupid, they just stop learning and it appears the same way anyways.
The capitalist class that expropriates the working class’ surplus value sure doesn’t hate capitalism.
but everyone hates the big companies and the rich people
its just that the right has been told that the left are the rich people (and then the left say that the neoliberals are the rich people, etc)
Do you think the problem with big companies and rich people is that individual rich people and the CEOs they elect just happen to be bad people?
The people who are willing to do more unethical stuff to make a profit make more of a profit, and become more powerful as a natural consequence, so the problem is with the system that incentives this and brings it to the top
Then I am confused why you would disagree with the left, that the political philosophy of capitalism, liberalism, is to blame.
It’s just that the right blames the capitalism on the left and the left blames the capitalism on the right, and the actual liberals end up being barely opposed
I don’t know what the takeaway from that should be, it’s just an observation/simplification that feels generally true
Individuals being bad isn’t really the problem. Within a company, jobs are performed in order to fulfill a fiduciary responsibility. You could argue that this makes people bad in some cases, but it’s not always cut and dry.
True. Capitalism can be made to work well for most people, as shown in many European and Asian countries. You need strong regulations (and for workers to engage in unions and in voting). People (specially on lemmy) seem to mix American oligarchy with capitalism.
My country speedran capitalistic invasion in 30 years. Or 23. Depends how you count it.
Not everyone. Capitalists love capitalism. It’s the people who aren’t capitalists but think they are because they love capitalism.
Sort of like how people think they are Christian’s because they go to church believe in Jesus, but don’t actually follow the teachings.
People think they are all sorts of things they are not and make themselves and or other miserable because of their fantasies.
We haven’t had capitalism in any sense of the word for about 60 years at this point. What we have seen is government interventionism in a protection of certain businesses that align with the interests of the sitting politicians - in other words, a form of Oligarchy.
What has transpired is an increasing degree of government deficits to fund entitlements, that drive inflation, which create more dependency on the entitlements and a call to do things like raise minimum wages.
The actual solution is: Trim federal spending, go into deflation, and drive the buying power of the currency up. This would allow people to pay down debts while maintaining standard of living, and allow for a reduction of dependency on hand outs - which would allow for a further reduction in government spending. The problem here is that the first step ABSOLUTELY SUCKS for a LOT of people - but it needs to be done.
From here: The big hedge funds, and such need to be ripped apart systemically.
-We haven’t had capitalism.
Continues on with Capitalistic solutions.
You’re just describing how Capitalism has reached its later stages, its death throes. You can’t turn the clock back, we have to turn it forwards to Socialism.
This is so fractally wrong that it would take two hours to untangle this hodge-podge of confusion. So I’ll just say, the only way out of neoliberalism’s problems is to do neoliberalism even harder. 😂
Trim federal spending, go into deflation, and drive the buying power of the currency up. This would allow people to pay down debts while maintaining standard of living.
My problem with this logic is the same problem I have when suited clowns claim they’ll just raise prices on everything 300% if the minimum wage goes up by $2.
Say we “trimmed federal spending” (which is kinda its job as an entity, to spend towards the people, ideally), and somehow magically our already-printed simoleons became worth more per dollar…
What, besides intense federal regulations, would prevent bosses from just spinning this as some kind of crisis, and making it an excuse to pay us less because “each dollar is worth more now so you’re making too much”?
“Entitlements” and “hand-outs” are necessary not because people are lazy, but because from a business perspective, jobs aren’t worth doing anymore , but we do them anyway because we’re forced to, if we want to participate in society at all.
TL;DR:
Basically, the solution is to tell the rent-seeking neo-gilded-age robber-barons of our day “Fuck you. Pay me.” If they actually paid a fair wage for the profits their employees generate, we’d be able to “pay down debts while maintaining standard of living, and allow for a reduction of dependency on hand outs - which would allow for a further reduction in government spending.”
That’s partially because like many other words and names (just consider Isis, an important goddess of ancient egypt), “socialism” to most people means the type of absolute control that communist countries usually feature. But of course, as a word/concept, socialism is just the application of socialist policies, not even remotely alluding to some absolute end goal or so. And naturally as a part of society except a tiny minority at the top, most people would benefit from more socialist policies.
Socialism isn’t really as simple as “socialist policies.” Such a character classification into binaries like “Capitalist policies” and “Socialist policies” doesn’t make much sense, Capitalism and Socialism describe much larger systems and what drives an economy. Social programs are good, yes, and Socialism is a good thing too, but they aren’t the same.
I think capitalism is fine in principle, but like anything else that needs limits and rules that people are willing to enforce.
Here’s a nice quote from The Communist Manifesto:
What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour.
It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen…
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate… Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till the moment of execution, and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do, without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people…
A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.
Ah shit, never mind. This was from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations
Wow, that was smooth. Points for impact!
I wish these minds could have been put in charge for arguing for and hashing out a combined sensible economic system, as they might have had differing ideas, but all clearly wanted a system that was optimal for human beings to thrive in.
Instead, these fellows are deified as proxy prophets, excuses and motivations for wars and slavery, by those who seek to enrich themselves entirely at the majority’s blood, sweat, and tears.
I’m on the fence about this, because as far as I understand, the regulatory mechanisms that end up serving as the limitations you’re talking about are actually contrary to the system’s core principles.
You can be fine with the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism and still favor a wealth cap and abolishing laws like Citizens United that give money undue influence on politics. Extreme wealth concentration actually hurts capitalism by starving the spending economy of money. It’s a defect in the system that eventually spoils the system.
Innovation and entrepreneurship is not exclusive to capitalism. People innovated and undertook ambitious projects before capitalism, and they will be doing so after it.
There is nothing inherent to the private ownership of the means of production and the wage exploitation/human rental system we have now that mandates innovation and entrepreneurship. In fact the opposite is visible today, with big companies stifling innovation.
Lots of people on Lemmy forget that the choice between Capitalism and Socialism isn’t binary. Country picks individual policies that are capitalist or socialist in nature. All of the modern countries are a combination of both. Even USA has certain socialist policies. Most of Europe is roughly equally capitalist and socialist.
It’s just making a character build and picking perks. Capitalist policies aren’t bad (for the general public) by default. Depending on how and which ones are implemented, they can be beneficial to everybody.
251·6 days agoSocialism is when the government does stuff, and when it does a whole bunch of stuff, its communism.
Hopefully that’s tongue in cheek, but it’s pretty much how a large (voting) segment of the population sees it. Freedom Good, Government Bad.
It’s famous quote from professor Wolff who said it incredibly ironically, just watch the clip. But yeah, tons of people actually do believe this.
It’s a quote from (left) professor Richard Wolff. Link
Edit: had gotten the first name wrong
Europe has many more Social policies than the US, but it is nowhere close to equally parts Socialist and Capitalist.
Socialism means that the Workers own the means of production, and there is no country in Europe where that is the case.
Social policies != Socialism.
It’s not about strictly “owning”, it’s about controlling. Control can be achieved in many different ways, including, but not limited to regulations. Socialism is an economic system, of which you can implements certain parts.
I didn’t say “social policies”. Socialist policies are a more specific subset of social policies, so all socialist policies are social policies, but not all social policies are socialist.
Regarding the European countries’ degree of being socialist, it of course depends on the country. But on average, you might be right, and perhaps using “equally” was an exaggeration.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism:
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy […] characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.
I’m not gonna lie, I don’t think a common-good healthcare regulation or whatever housing plans fall under the definition.
Edit: there’s some merit to this you could’ve brought up, e.g. Germany’s mandating by law of some (limited) worker control in firms ≥500 employees in size (wikipedia link). But even that’s breaking with the definition, since it’s not about ownership, but rather a say in leading the company.
You’re thinking of Capitalism and Socialism as Private Property and Public Property, and as oil and water. That’s not how systems work in the real world, however. An economic system is determined by what is primary in an Economy, and at scale property relations are entirely mixed and inter-related. Having safety nets doesn’t make the Capitalist EU somehow “a mix,” and having markets doesn’t make the Socialist PRC Capitalist either.
You are partially correct, in that markets are a useful tool at lower stages of development and public ownership and central planning at higher stages, but that doesn’t seem to be where you were going with that.
The problem with this is the capitalists have a way of revoking rights when the working class has its back turned, and the privilege of making unlimited propaganda to make sure those backs stay turned and either complacent or focused on other things. The only way to prevent this is for the wealthy to answer to the people rather than the other way around, which means the working class must control the means of production. This is the capitalists’ lever of control as a class.
By making sure that society cannot produce anything without them, they get to control our material conditions, who lives or dies, what gets produced and how it gets produced, with no real regard for the people’s needs besides what coincidentally creates more capital for them. And they can direct this all in the particular way which convinces us that this is the natural order of things and we should actually be thanking them for the breadcrumbs they leave us when all is said and done.
Realistically, you cannot have one without the other. Anything else is leaving the door open to the capitalists to pull things back in their direction using their vast accumulation of wealth, which under capitalism directly translates to influence and power.
The US has a bunch of socialist policies, it’s just that the people who complain about socialism don’t know what it means.
Those have been withering away. They’re trying to get rid of the postal service, we’ve never had national health…I was reading about Slovenia who now has a mixed economy, with the government heavily involved in planning. The only way I see capitalism working at all is social democracy, but I’d much rather see socialism. Luxury goods for profit, necessities as service, progressive taxes with the top incomes, corporate and private, being taxed in the 90th percentile, to fund services, and heavy sanctioning of nations that hide wealth from non-citizens and lifting of sanctions on nations that do the same, as well as not trying to overthrow their governments as long as they are no threat to us. And arms de-escalation.
If you think the US has “socialist policies,” I wouldn’t be so sure you know what Socialism means either. It’s worth reading theory IMO.
The US doesn’t have any socialist policies.
But when government has social programs it’s socialism. It’s in the name!
I don’t think this needs a /s, but the world doesn’t fucking make any sense.
Arguably, The US does have several socialist policies, albeit implemented very badly. For instance, public education. Does capitalism stick its grubby fingers into it from every possible angle? Yes. But at its core it has collective funding through taxes (therefore owned/controlled by the state), universal access, and the prioritization of public welfare over profit (at least on paper). Those principles are strictly socialist and not capitalist.
Socialism does not mean controlled by the state, that is just a state service, which can be capitalist.
Socialism, and I cannot stress this enough, is not when the government does stuff
Where did I say “government does stuff”? If a service is provided not for profit, funded by the community and is otherwise not privately owned, it’s socialist. It needs to be for-profit and/or privately owned to be capitalist.
No, this type of thinking is anti-dialectical. Capitalism is a system where private property and commodity production is primary, and socialism is a system where collective ownership and planning is primary. This does not mean systems are partially Socialist and partially Capitalist, but that property relations are not uniform in most systems. I think reading Marx would be helpful for you.
This may help clear up much of where you are butting heads with MLs in your comments.
Classic example: “I don’t want Big Government Socialism messing with my Medicare!”
Or farm subsidies
Thank you, that is such an important point! Many if not most issues in our world are non-binary, but facing this requires thinking beyond memes, which many people don’t want to do. Gotta swipe left or right, those are your two choices, or you’re a shill for the wrong side. It’s really discouraging, almost a New Conservatism - not in a political sense but in an insular thinking and circling the wagons sense.
Funny enough, reducing Communists to rigid thinking devoid of nuance is actually anti-Marxist. Nuance and looking at issues dialectically is core to Communist thought, it’s non-Marxists that paint Marxism as dogmatic and inflexible.
it’s non-Marxists that paint Marxism as dogmatic and inflexible.
Yeah, it’s such a tired trope that it’s almost become a meme.
“Read theory” is already such an all-encompassing meme though, and covers that pretty well. Truly, if every liberal read like 3 or 4 pamphlets on Marxism we’d probably be at Socialism by now, well on our way to Communism.
For real, it doesn’t take much reading to dispell many of the myths and I frankly think most people wouldn’t be content to stop there. Once you begin reading, you hunger for more.
Absolutely, I started taking theory fairly seriously about a year ago and I haven’t been nearly as voracious in my studies or reading since childhood. The process of learning how the world genuinely works and seeing everything click into place is immensely satisfying.
“The truth must lie somewhere in the middle” is one of the most overused and underexamined memes in public discourse this comment is about to collapse upon itself into an irony black hole
Good illustration - binary thinking turns “the truth CAN lie somewhere in the middle” into “the truth MUST lie somewhere in the middle” because there has to be one right answer and one COMPLETELY OPPOSITE AND WRONG answer to everything. Except no, you’re just doing it wrong.
When the hinges on the door to your mind palace have rusted shut “Um actually false dichotomies are themselves a false dichotomy!”
Regarding OP’s image…
- They make blanket statements
- They tell you what your problem is and they think they are more qualified than you, to know what your problem is
- They think they have the perfect solution for you, if only you weren’t in the way
Naturally the government they favor would have the same perspective, no?
Blaming “capitalism” for all of society’s problems is about as useful as blaming God or some gremlins. For example, if you’re in the USA and you blame “capitalism” for your problems, then what are you gonna do about it? There is no path to change this society from capitalism to socialism or communism. We have entire armies of military and police who will ensure that the status quo stays in place. You also can’t vote your way out of this. No candidates advocating such changes will be elected.
The best thing we can do is aim for better regulation of the systems that have allowed for the oligarchy to take it all over. Which won’t be easy or quick at all but is at least somewhat possible.
God and gremlins arent real
the systems that have allowed for the oligarchy to take it all over
They didn’t take it over, they created it. The lack of democratic influence isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. They have been laying to you all your life!
there are paths you’re just not willing to consider them.
I think they meant, like, practical actionable paths, not like ‘I’m playing a Sim and everyone does what I say’. Perhaps they were trying to think about what people could do in the real world that we actually live in
all paths are practical and actionable, if you take action. but thats a you issue not a me or others issue. someone recently showed you a path to take that is effective and simple to do on your own. you’re just not willing to consider it.
Your definition of practical and mine differ. For me, a path that makes my life considerably worse is not a practical path. I would assume the same is true for you, you’re just unable to admit it.
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na you’re just making assumptions instead of reading what is actually said. I have not made a statement about what paths I personally support, only that unless you take action personally non-sense about the practicality of a particular idea is self defeating. there are always challenges and struggles the point is to surmount them not wallow in self pity. again pointing to a personal issue with the person claiming impracticality. not with the person proposing and ideally taking action on a path.
So what are you gonna do about it then? In reality.
as i said you’re not willing to consider them as clearly demonstrated by trying to push the responsibility for these issues onto others.
Could it be that you just don’t want to admit that you can’t do anything about it?
As for me, I don’t have any responsibility to push onto others about it. I accept the things that cannot change, and I have adapted to survive in the environment that I live in, and things are going generally well.
No, I just have no interest in dicussing a topic like this with a random on the internet where it won’t matter. very different. enjoy your day time being ineffectual.
Likewise, have a great time with your fantasies of revolution or whatever.
Look, you can have nuance or you can have performative outrage, you don’t get to have both. Lemmy has made its bed
The path has been laid out by Mr Luigi
We could have utopia tomorrow. The path to change worldwide is to effect change where you live. If we all started there, then the local changes would spread. People would want what they have locally to work in larger scales. We don’t have to call it socialism, capitalism, communism, conservative , liberal, freedom, whatever. Terms are proxy enemies used to make us fear or love based on heuristics. We inherently know what a just world would feel and look like. It’s in our nature. If someone has to convince you to override your intuition, then it’s shit. Don’t look for answers elsewhere. Don’t blindly follow anyone. Build the world you want in your heart at home. It will grow out from there. Also, I used to love orange juice as a kid. I drank it from a silly clown cup I got at a performance on ice one time when my parents took me.
Things I hate were present where I live through half of USSR and then till now, and replaced things even scarier present since the revolution.
Tell me it’s capitalism, mofo, I beg you.
What things are you talking about, “mofo”?
Things you hate? How can it be explained as capitalism if you won’t say what it is.
You act like there was never a guy named Karl Marx who proved this stuff, and debunked many myths about the economy, like 150+ years ago. It isn’t just a random thing like a superstition. In fact believing capitalism isnt responsible is almost a superstition.
Wages are flat while production has skyrocketed the last 50 years, a little longer than I’ve been alive. The system produces a few rich people at one end and a bunch of poor people at the other, that’s what it is meant to do, it’s what it does. It isn’t just an economic system, its the state and media as well.
People aren’t just blaming all their problems on capitalism like some petulant child. There are causes that are very clear and some more hidden, but its no secret and hasn’t been for a pretty long time.
You act like there was never a guy named Karl Marx who proved this stuff, and debunked many myths about the economy, like 150+ years ago.
Marx proved nothing and debunkednothing , he’s not a scientist, he’s an ideologist and a creator of a cult.
It isn’t just a random thing like a superstition.
It is exactly that.
Wages are flat while production has skyrocketed the last 50 years, a little longer than I’ve been alive.
That means the balance of power hasn’t changed, or changed in the way that wages stayed flat.
There are causes that are very clear and some more hidden, but its no secret and hasn’t been for a pretty long time.
I disagree. Human societies are very complex, and economy is basically an open system. Any reductionist model, like that of Marx, will fail in most cases and kinda work in some.
Clearly you’ve never read Marx in any meaningful way, which is unfortunate. If you think Marx is a “reductionist model” then you are cleanly, plainly, completely mistaken. Das Capital isn’t a pamphlet, its 4 unfinished volumes.
Your anti intellectualism is a sad affair, but propaganda is a hell of a drug. I love being told by people who haven’t studied Marx what he is all about. Do you also have strong opinions on Augustine, Hegel, Kant or Descartes? Have you ever read them?
Balance of power
What power? The power of workers? You might have more Marxist ideas than you think.
If you think Marx is a “reductionist model” then you are cleanly, plainly, completely mistaken. Das Capital isn’t a pamphlet, its 4 unfinished volumes.
You know, an adequate Marxist (I’ve met such, believe it or not) would not argue that it is a reductionist model (every model is, my point was that Marxists apply it universally without feedbacks, for which no model is good) and of course wouldn’t use amount of text as a measure of quality or correctness.
Your anti intellectualism is a sad affair, but propaganda is a hell of a drug. I love being told by people who haven’t studied Marx what he is all about. Do you also have strong opinions on Augustine, Hegel, Kant or Descartes? Have you ever read them?
This text doesn’t make sense. I have a strong preference for Marcus Aurelius’ notes and Tao Te Ching over these, if you insist, but Descartes is fine too.
What power? The power of workers? You might have more Marxist ideas than you think.
In this case the power of people with interests weighing more on the employer’s side or the worker’s side. I wouldn’t say it’s power of workers, just like wind filling ship’s sails is not ship’s power.
I don’t think anything is strange in intersections.
Thank you for the considerate response.
You might be more well equipped for Marx than you think. The Tao the Ching, and the I Ching are both works of dialectical philosophy. Marxism, when applied correctly, is a fusion of empirical materialism and dialectics. Whenever people new to Marxism struggle with his method, I always recommend the Tao te Ching. People raised with western rational model, like us, struggle with contradiction in our reasoning. Except when it affects our lives directly, our minds reject it. The Tao teaches us to stay with the contradictions, which is what is needed to perform a dialectical analysis, since dialectics is the logic of change, progression, and synthesis, relation and contradiction.
This along with the mention of Marcus Aurelius reminds me of when I first started trying to educate myself, and came across the work of Nick Taleb. Its a bit pitched to the right for my taste these days (although his sterling advice, “don’t be a sucker” is as good advice as you’ll ever get,) but at the time it is what got me into studying philosophy, Meditations was the second philosophy book I ever read. I don’t consider myself a stoic, but I loved that book at one time, as well as the Enchirideon by Epictetus.
Your claim of an imbalance in power between the workers and owners is at least an acknowledgement of Marx’s theories. Maybe you like that balance, lots of people have a fetish for “balance of powers” and maybe there’s something to that. Except the balance can’t be achieved, it always prefers the owners and requires historical amounts of civil unrest to make any reluctant progressive change at all.
I don’t appreciate being told that I’m in a cult, a cult that never existed, and certainly Marx never started one. Its dishonest, but I guess you picked it up somewhere. I def didn’t know what Marx was about before I studied him. Buy now if I don’t know an author, I don’t have to pretend I’m smart or know something I don’t, I just say I don’t know and if I am interested then I study them. Very simple and honest.
Here’s the thing they won’t tell you about Marx: when you’re a worker and you learn to read him, because he’s difficult, you realize that he confirms your experience as a worker and goes deeper. He proves what we suspect but that everyone tells us isn’t true. He removes doubt and provides a way forward –
– and then you study the history of the USSR and other 20th century socialist experiments and the doubt comes back. But Marx was, hands down, the greatest intellectual of the 19th century and should be read and studied by all. Not to indoctrinate into a cult, but to actually open peoples minds to what is possible, and how class rule, throughout history, has worked tirelessly to alienate us from our selves and each other. Capitalism is just the latest and greatest form of class rule.
But a better world is possible!
USSR had a state capitalist economy
I fully agree. So when you are against capitalism, what is your alternative that doesn’t devolve into state capitalism?
That’s something you can write a book about.
In my opinion it has to come from a bottom up movement, that puts emphasis on the sort of types of organization a socialist movement ultimately aims for.
The Leninists tried to disconnect the means and the ends of the movement, using the tools of the bourgeoisie to try and build a new system, which failed.
Marxist-Leninists did not “disconnect means and ends.” The goal of Marxism is liberation of the proletariat, the means of which being working towards Communism, a fully publicly owned, centrally planned world republic free of classes, the state, and money. Marxism-Leninism adds analysis of Imperialism, Capitalism as it spreads internationally (which was not developed yet in Marx’s time), as well as strategic advancements like Democratic Centralism and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination.
Marx was not an Anarchist, he wanted full centralization and public ownership, not a horizontal network of Communes. Engels even argued against such a system in Anti-Dühring.
Marxist-Leninists did not “disconnect means and ends.” The goal of Marxism is liberation of the proletariat, the means of which being working towards Communism, a fully publicly owned, centrally planned world republic free of classes, the state, and money.
And it has accomplished exactly 0 of those goals.
Marx was not an Anarchist, he wanted full centralization and public ownership, not a horizontal network of Communes. Engels even argued against such a system in Anti-Dühring.
Marx did not explicitly argue for centralisation. Plus, I do not care what Marx thought.
The divorce of the means and ends of the socialist movement in Russia, after it was betrayed by the bolsheviks is apparent from the results of their rule.
The purpose of a system is what it does. The bolshevik regime, and the systems inspired by it resulted in the oppression for the proletariat.
But in the end, there is no reason to argue with your kind.
You are not capable of critically examining the failings of past movements.
You can always conveniently ignore all critiques of your favorite regimes as “western propaganda” without listening to the accounts of the people who lived under them.
You can always excuse the atrocities and failings of your favorite regimes by vaguely gesturing at “counter revolutionaries” and “foreign interference” without examining them further.
You are toeing the party line of a long dead regime for internet points. Citing Marx and Engels more like prophets than human beings.
I dislike you very much and I hope you get better one day.
Marxist-Leninists have not yet achieved a global Socialist republic yet and therefore not Communism, yes. Marxist-Leninists have thus far succeeded in transitioning from Capitalism to Socialism, but not from Socialism to Communism.
Marx absolutely argued for Centralization. His core argument was that Capitalism’s natural tendency to centralize production laid the foundation for full centralized ownership and planning in common. Your lack of care for Marx doesn’t shift his arguments.
The result of Socialism in Russia and the successful implementation of it resulted in a doubling of life expectancy, the highest literacy rates in the world, an end to famine, robust safety nets like free and high quality education and healthcare, mass democratization, and massively reduced wealth disparity speak for themselves. No, they were not perfect, but to assert that it is Marxist-Leninists who adhere to dogmatic and uncritical support for Socialism when you yourself make the error of erasing all of the working class victories achieved by the billions of people who have worked towards building Communism is hypocritical and dogmatic.
You are correct in saying that the purpose of a system is what it does, when we analyze Socialism in the USSR, we see an incredibly dramatic and directed improvement in the real lives of the Proletariat and Peasantry.
You spend over half of your comment building up and attacking a strawman, then directly attacking me as though I am the strawman you created. I really hope that at some point you spend more time reading theory and history, as well as more time organizing, than you appear to be doing now.
This discussion is boring.
You have a religious devotion to Stalinism, and as such you’re completely disconnected from reality.
Please, do the world a favor and stop engaging politically.
“Things can only get better if the whole world is under one big totalitarian government, and then the totalitarian government will disappear on its own, I promise bro!” is not at all appealing or logical to anyone who isn’t already indoctrinated into your faith.
The USSR moved out of State Capitalism with the end of the NEP. It is technically correct that they had a State Capitalist economy, but they moved on to a traditional Socialist economy relatively early on.
And also water is dry, the sky is red, and the earth is neither round nor flat, but a klein bottle.
“State Capitalism” is a form of Socialist economy primarily categorized by a State’s participation in a market economy, heavily directing it. The NEP was used early on as the USSR was very underdeveloped, and Marxists believe markets serve as efficient tools for rapidly developing productive forces at lower stages of development. This was shifted away from after the NEP to a more Publicly Owned and Centrally Planned economy characteristic of traditional Marxian Sociailsm. There were still some small markets and small commodity producers, but by far the primary sector of the economy was in the Public Sector.
Socialist economies are when you have commodity production and MOP owned by an ownership class.
👍
“Uhh akshually the proletariat owns the means of production because the state is basically the people.” Please, tell me you don’t actually believe this.
an ownership class
???
The owners of something are the owners of that thing.
Yes, and the owner of the MoP in the USSR was the state, which was controlled by a small political elite.
This creates a class conflict very similar to the conflict under free market capitalism.
Socialist economies are determined by which form of production is primary in an economy, and in the USSR post-NEP this was public ownership and central planning. It is undeniably Socialist from a Marxian analysis, the ownership being the public and therefore the Proletariat, not some obscure “ownership class” that has no bearing in Marxist analysis.
The Proletarian State is the tool of class oppression against the bourgeoisie. This is traditional Marxism, the public owning the MoP is the hallmark of Socialism, and the Proletarian State withers with respect to how collectivized production has become. Marx was certainly no Anarchist, there can be no Marxism without Public Ownership and Central Planning.
Socialist economies are determined by which form of production is primary in an economy, and in the USSR post-NEP this was public ownership and central planning.
This doesn’t mean it wasn’t commodity production.
Socialist from a Marxian analysis, the ownership being the public and therefore the Proletariat, not some obscure “ownership class” that has no bearing in Marxist analysis.
Not even but you’re too deep in the kool-aid to even understand your own prophet.
The Proletarian State is the tool of class oppression against the bourgeoisie.
And yet, it was a tool of oppression against the proletariat.
Turns out that the state and capital are one and the same, and when you try to use a system of oppression to liberate someone, it doesn’t work out.
This is traditional Marxism, the public owning the MoP is the hallmark of Socialism, and the Proletarian State withers with respect to how collectivized production has become.
“Actually, worker control of the MoP is when a very tiny political elite decides how the MoP is used.”
And of course, the fabled “withering of the state” which can be seen by how the late USSR oligarchy withered into the Russian Federation mafia state!
Marx was certainly no Anarchist
Take a drink every time a tankie randomly stays this.
there can be no Marxism without Public Ownership and
Marx was pretty vague about central planning in his writing in general, and there are arguments that he could have been opposed to it later in his life, this is however irrelevant.
I cannot emphasize enough that I do not care about Marxism, it’s a useful tool for analysis of capital, but Marx lived and died in the 1800s.
It’s time for the socialist movement to move on forward, we can synthesize the old with new information and analysis which waa gained throughout the last 150 years, and create better systems and theories.
The endless discussion on what the “prophet” Marx and Engels wanted us to do are fucking poinltess and furthermore incredibly boring and played out.
