Discussion Socialism Discussion Thread

In the face of all of this, where does the left go from here? Electoralism seems like a busted flush in many countries.
I don't know. Sucks to say, but maybe for some reason we need to go through it? And then hope we have actual class consciousness because of it?

Maybe it's a cyclical thing, that fascism shows its ugly face every few decades or so. Or maybe it's something that will stay with us and get worse and worse as the energy crisis and water shortages and climate disasters worsen over the years.

Sorry for the ramble, I don't mean to be bleak. Let's hope we all get through it.
 
I don't know. Sucks to say, but maybe for some reason we need to go through it? And then hope we have actual class consciousness because of it?

Maybe it's a cyclical thing, that fascism shows its ugly face every few decades or so. Or maybe it's something that will stay with us and get worse and worse as the energy crisis and water shortages and climate disasters worsen over the years.

Sorry for the ramble, I don't mean to be bleak. Let's hope we all get through it.

Genuine question: Do you think it's likely PVV can form a government coalition?
 
I'm so angry and upset about Wilders winning the elections in the Netherlands, where I unfortunately live. I feel so bad for the muslim population in the country. It's a very dark day in the history of our country.

We have learned nothing from the past. NOTHING.

You can't secure or maintain a democracy with anti-democratic elements infesting the political sphere.
 
In the face of all of this, where does the left go from here? Electoralism seems like a busted flush in many countries.
I think the left needs to shift quite a bit on international affairs. It's really only going to get worse with climate change, with famine, lack of water, and increasing number of disasters. The left needs a message about these things, because it continues to be ignored. Of course people are going to flock to people who actually acknowledge these issues instead of not reassuring the people and communicating a general plan of what people can expect.

This doesn't necessarily mean Xenophobia, but it has to come with some measure of protection for its citizens. If the government reasurred, and created new jobs for incoming refugees and built housing. And also, provided way more advertising that it would boost the economy. I guarantee that people wouldn't be as scared. People want their lives to be the same, and/or get better. Harboring Refugees seems like an intensely scary concept to the general population, the left needs to know how to comfort it.
 
Genuine question: Do you think it's likely PVV can form a government coalition?
Probably yes. Highly likely even. They already have the backing of the farmers party (the BBB). All they need is one extra coalition partner which imo will be the previous ruling party, the VVD. They lost big but are sizable enough to be a serious partner. And since they made overtures during the campaign i'm certain they will be at the negotiating table.

Now, the real deal is what will happen after. I am thinking that the PVV will begin some sort of anti muslim bullshit that will sour a good part of their base, since the media kept telling them that Wilders has softened on Islam (A LIE) but more importantly I am guessing one or both coalition partners will not go along with that. When that happens, we will have new elections and my hope is that the PVV won't have the same support after it (since people will have seen that it has NOT softened on extreme anti muslim bigotry).
 
The election year in the united states is already a farce to view as a communist having been through this song and dance with democratic party defenders before.
 
Nah just hearing from Biden defenders going on about him being the new FDR still.
Though the tiktok ban thing is stupid
I don't think Biden has done anything as significant as the New Deal. Well, the Medicaid price negotiating thing is very substantial, but the New Deal was a veeeeeery macro and micro economic and socially consequential project.

The TikTok bang is a Trojan Horse inside a Trojan Horse:
  • The State having the power to selectively ban social media;
  • Right Wing millionaires and billionaires yet again acquiring a social network to publish their alt right and nazi ideologies
 
Here’s more information about socialism


Anyway that’s obviously a joke. Socialism is not just a welfare state under capitalism
 
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I don't think Biden has done anything as significant as the New Deal. Well, the Medicaid price negotiating thing is very substantial, but the New Deal was a veeeeeery macro and micro economic and socially consequential project.

The TikTok bang is a Trojan Horse inside a Trojan Horse:
  • The State having the power to selectively ban social media;
  • Right Wing millionaires and billionaires yet again acquiring a social network to publish their alt right and nazi ideologies
Also, Congressmen who treat the IDF budget as their credit card don't want the zoomers to use the most popular social media platform to talk about how indiscriminately bombing one of the most densely populated areas on Earth is bad, actually.
 
Also, Congressmen who treat the IDF budget as their credit card don't want the zoomers to use the most popular social media platform to talk about how indiscriminately bombing one of the most densely populated areas on Earth is bad, actually.
The Israel-Palestine conflict has made me realize how engrossed the US is in the military industrial complex economy. Like, I knew about the MIC, but this conflict is what really made me realize
 
It really sucks that there isn't a large socialist movement in the US right now, considering how horrid both the Democrats and Republicans are doing with their presidential candidates at the moment.
 
The Left Coalition are projected to have won big in the French Elections with seats for a relative majority, Le Pen's far right came 3rd behind Macron's "centrist" party in a reverse of the first round of voting
 
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It really sucks that there isn't a large socialist movement in the US right now, considering how horrid both the Democrats and Republicans are doing with their presidential candidates at the moment.
I’m trying to get involved in local stuff but yeah this is a country built on reactionary ideals so sadly it isn’t too surprising.
 
The Left Coalition are projected to have won big in the French Elections with seats for a relative majority, Le Pen's far right came 3rd behind Macron's "centrist" party in a reverse of the first round of voting
I wonder who they'll work with though to form a functioning majority.
 
It really sucks that there isn't a large socialist movement in the US right now, considering how horrid both the Democrats and Republicans are doing with their presidential candidates at the moment.
It's difficult when the biggest police state in the world constantly sabotages and strangles any emergent socialist movements by any means necessary, whether by violent repression or merely buying out anyone with supposed socialist ideals the second they get elected.
 
I just noticed this thread, and as someone who lives in a post-socialist country, I probably have a lot to say.
 
OK, say it.
I am Chinese, and my country was by and large reformed and opened up after 1979, so the recapitalization of our country predates even the disintegration of the Soviet East. I think that living in a post-socialist country gives a real sense of the special affinity that exists between the concept of socialism and capitalism, and that in China it is not precisely the private enterprises that compete in globalization that now hold the lifeblood of the economy, but rather the huge state-owned enterprises, which, in Mao's time, had already produced substantial hierarchical distinctions within the factories under their aegis, with workers based on occupational skills Workers were divided into eight grades according to their professional skills, and the worker aristocracy was established through the combination of the industrial-agricultural scissors gap and the eight grades. Workers in the state-owned enterprises enjoyed urban housing and commercial food, while the rural areas were in a state of long-term depression (except for the 1959-1961 famine, which was more severe, but mostly just a depression.) , so at least in terms of my country's experience, socialist construction during the Maoist period was unable to eliminate substantive class distinctions, and the worker-aristocracy group occupied a middle-class position in the modern sense of the term during that period. Thus from a broader perspective, in the 1990s, as the reform of state-owned enterprises and comprehensive market-oriented reforms only served to transform much of China's former working aristocracy back into the proletariat and labor reserve army, new groups with vested interests have been able to take advantage of the Maoist-era bureaucracy by exploiting its power to cannibalize the state economy in addition to the rural areas in order to alleviate the general Maoist-era depression the introduction of the land contract system led to the cultivation of more rural petty bourgeoisie and big bourgeoisie in the wave of township and village enterprise start-ups in the 1980s. As you can see from this narrative, the socialist era in China has been unable to shake off its own substantial affinities with capitalism from beginning to end, and therefore I, as a Marxist-Leninist, can no longer continue to positively evaluate the concept of socialism itself as I see it as nothing more than a compromised outcome of a full-blown class struggle and violent revolution that could not be controlled on its own, and in this sense I would suggest a re In this sense I would suggest that a new theory of communism be conceived, and I do not subscribe to any of the existing idealistic theories of "what the new society should be like", because class struggle and violent revolution will lead us into a complete blind spot, and it is impossible for any person or any organization to predict what the future will be like after a violent revolution.

In addition, the workers as a group were only able to represent a complete proletarian group in the particular years of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but living in a post-socialist country it is clear that the concept of "worker" is a group of identities based on occupations in the capitalist discourse, and therefore there is actually a real class division within the workers.and it is in this class division that the real definition of the proletariat can be realized, rather than proletariat = workers.
 
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@Aufhebung RPG i appreciate your insight a lot. Do you get the sense that other Marxist-Leninists in China are not enthused with the current structure of the country? Because from the outside in, it feels a bit like the country is in a holding pattern while they wait for “true” socialism to take form, but obviously as an American my perspective is limited.
 
@Aufhebung RPG i appreciate your insight a lot. Do you get the sense that other Marxist-Leninists in China are not enthused with the current structure of the country? Because from the outside in, it feels a bit like the country is in a holding pattern while they wait for “true” socialism to take form, but obviously as an American my perspective is limited.
Yes, in my own experience, if one were a Marxist-Leninist, one would advocate the continuation of the revolution, and by violent means rather than any non-violent resistance.There is a saying that "revolution is not a treat", and most Marxists in China (Leninists or not) would recognize that China is in a post-socialist era, and would agree that if the status quo in the country is left unchecked, and that the balance of power will be tilted more and more in favor of the bourgeoisie.In my opinion, this is not even just a balance of power between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but also the fact that in the 40 years of reform and opening up, China has cultivated a large number of modern urban middle-class people (about 300 million), whose positions are ambiguous or even reactionary, and for whom "defense of our modern life" is the slogan, and which is bound to produce a further tearing of their positions.

In the Chinese Marxist-Leninist community, the criterion for determining whether a person is merely honest about the communist movement is whether he accuses the violent revolution of terrorism, and if he believes that the Red Terror was necessary and not merely "terrorism", then he is a true Marxist-Leninist.
 
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Yes, in my own experience, if one were a Marxist-Leninist, one would advocate the continuation of the revolution, and by violent means rather than any non-violent resistance.There is a saying that "revolution is not a treat", and most Marxists in China (Leninists or not) would recognize that China is in a post-socialist era, and would agree that if the status quo in the country is left unchecked, and that the balance of power will be tilted more and more in favor of the bourgeoisie.In my opinion, this is not even just a balance of power between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but also the fact that in the 40 years of reform and opening up, China has cultivated a large number of modern urban middle-class people (about 300 million), whose positions are ambiguous or even reactionary, and for whom "defense of our modern life" is the slogan, and which is bound to produce a further tearing of their positions.

In the Chinese Marxist-Leninist community, the criterion for determining whether a person is merely honest about the communist movement is whether he accuses the violent revolution of terrorism, and if he believes that the Red Terror was necessary and not merely "terrorism", then he is a true Marxist-Leninist.
Interesting. Again, appreciate your insight. I consider myself a Marxist with sympathetic leaning towards Marxist-Leninism, so this is good to know. I generally avoid commenting much on Chinese politics because 1) I am obviously not a Chinese citizen, and 2) I do not want to engage in the obvious cold war media reporting on China, so it's good to have your perspective.
 
Since I have been thinking a lot about the Kronstadt Sailors' Rebellion as I read about it, I would like to add some more. The proletariat was implanted in social analysis by Marx using the Hegelian philosophical understanding of absolute negativity, and as such it is necessarily impossible for it to be represented by a fixed group of identities, especially in a revolutionary civil war, where the dynamics of class change occur all the time, and where it is not possible to determine at any given time, by observation, to which class a particular group actually belongs, and where universal mass movements and mass wars will bring the old social The generalized mass movement and the mass war will tear the old society to pieces, and in this form of blindness of vision, any "excess" of the revolution is inevitable, because no one can look at the revolutionary situation from an objective point of view, rather the revolution itself is a total collapse of objectivism, and all the actions of the people at this time are just a continuous break with reality.
 
If anyone here wants some theory to read, I wholeheartedly recommend African Anarchism: The History of a Movement by Sam Mbah and Iduma Igariwey Enwo. A fascinating piece of both politics and African history.
 
The theoretical book that I will read over and over again is Hegel's science of logic and its philosophy of right. but what I've been reading lately is the book Tea War a history of capitalism, which compares two models of the tea-growing industry in India and the Qing dynasty after the 18th century, and deals with the transformations within each of the two countries to a retrospective way of uncovering the capitalist transformations in India (under British colonization) and the Qing dynasty.
 
I’d recommend The Long Twentieth Century.

 
I’d recommend The Long Twentieth Century.

When is the sequel about the long 2014 coming out
 
Hello comrades

Just wanted to stop in real quick to state in a more public space, that Sacha Baron Cohen is a minstrel actor. He’s been making public appearances as his ‘beloved’ character, Borat. Let’s be clear about what this is - minstrel against Muslims. He is lampooning a marginalized group of people, part of whom are currently subject to genocide. It is disgusting, vile, and sadistic that civil society allows a man to profit from such display. But I suppose western societies really haven’t progressed enough to stop them enjoying a good ol minstrel act.

Anyway, that’s all I gotta say. Thank you for attending my TED talk
 
Hello comrades

Just wanted to stop in real quick to state in a more public space, that Sacha Baron Cohen is a minstrel actor. He’s been making public appearances as his ‘beloved’ character, Borat. Let’s be clear about what this is - minstrel against Muslims. He is lampooning a marginalized group of people, part of whom are currently subject to genocide. It is disgusting, vile, and sadistic that civil society allows a man to profit from such display. But I suppose western societies really haven’t progressed enough to stop them enjoying a good ol minstrel act.

Anyway, that’s all I gotta say. Thank you for attending my TED talk
I never really understood the love for Borat (or any of his characters, they all seem like problematic minority caricatures to me) but I was just absolutely done tolerating anything with him in it after Rebel Wilson opened up about him assaulting/humiliating her on a movie set and how her own management sided with him when she tried to back out of the scene over it. He's a damn creep and I hate that he's held up as some sort of comedic genius speaking truth to power.
 


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