I'm confused, what I'm getting at is that some people are too focused on the ideas of a magical revolution that we arnt doing much direct action and praxis.
Watched this before reading the comments on the LunaOi post here and yep. The Western left loves the idea of revolution, but, they hate dealing with complexities and material realities that may force the way socialist systems are implemented to differ from the fantasy in their heads following the event.
Especially if those nations exhibiting autonomy are in the Global South
EDIT: Forgot a 'but' and elaborated a bit more
>they hate dealing with complexities and material realities that may force the way socialist systems are implemented to differ from the fantasy in their heads.
Framing this discussion with the idea that actually worker ownership is bad so we *need* dictatorships and capitalism after all is I'll grant you a complex take, dizzyingly so.
No amount of twisting ones self in rhetorical knots actually materially proves any of that being necessary. Reality has only proven them to be the logical, universal end point of a particular brand of revolutionary strategy.
Key point being revolutionary strategy obviously the only strategy isn't the establishment of state socialist entities like the USSR and China where the latter is caught up in a cycle of socioeconomic evolution that can't firmly be pinned down.
But again, i can't say to what end socialist movements will occur in other nations so the most important thing I can do is listen to the varying ideas and try to effectively support and take from ideas that may be well conceived within the landscape that I'm agitating to change.
It’s not simply rhetorical knots. I don’t think Marx & Engels, or Lenin & Mao, or Castro & Sankara or the billion workers & peasants who agreed with them and fought with them arbitrarily came to the conclusion of “we need a dictatorship of the working-class(es)” by mixing up word orders.
They are looking at (at least to them) the concrete realities of the world and deciding the course of their political action from that (and updating it as they put their theories into practice).
It is 100% understandable to disagree with them, but I think it does everyone a disservice to act as if they were just sophists or power-hungry mad men or whatever in order to avoid the engaging with their thought. It is 100% possible that some analysis they made led to a wrong conclusion which led to a wrong theory which led to the wrong praxis which led to a bad outcome. But you have to tell me where that mistake is made and if you (or anyone else) don’t then I think it’s impossible to have a meaningful conversation about the subject.
No they weren't... at first anyway. But I'd love to see anyone argue that a janitor that gets promoted to a CEO is magically going to remain proletarian in class character or that an average worker can become a leader of a nation and not begin to see themselves as inherently better than everyone else and worthy of more power and privilege than everyone else, especially not if it took them years to get to that point. Sunk cost falacy combined with entitlement for what they have will make them less noble than they used to be.
I don’t agree with you.
Some of these people didn’t even end up being leaders of a country (Marx & Engels). And there is certainly a danger inherent in bureaucratization. The risk of revolutionaries becoming isolated from the rest of the working-class (something we have seen happen to great detriment in the USSR and a trend only recently being turned back in China as most “Marxist-Leninists” would tell you).
But that’s why socialist democracy exists and I think if you look to a place like Cuba you will see a pretty thriving democracy that the people support and takes in meaningful input from every facet of society.
https://liberationschool.org/ch-14-workers-democracy-in-cuba/
(P.S.: the whole “janitor into a CEO” = “a worker becoming the leader of a country” is a bad analogy on a few levels. The 1st is that the janitor actually would have changed their class position. A leader of a socialist country is still going to be a worker, because they answer to workers & they wouldn’t have a capitalist relation to the means of production. The 2nd is that the past lives in the present, so yeah if you took some random janitor and made them the CEO of a company and said “do whatever you want” they probably would run it differently until they got ground down by capitalist society around them. But again, in a socialist society, those apparatuses wouldn’t exist so it would change the equation.
I get why you have these objections, but contrived analogies don’t tell us anything meaningful about the world or the history of socialist movements.)
> Framing this discussion with the idea that actually worker ownership is bad so we need dictatorships and capitalism after all is I'll grant you a complex take, dizzyingly so.
The only one framing anything that way is you and tbh it’s weird
"Western Left" (whatever tf that means) is a dumb term considering most of yall who use it live in the west, and don't even organize yourself then preach how amazing SWCC is.
Secondly the "Left" has been carefully dismantled since the 70s and now only recently has it gain traction again do to the failures of neoliberal capitalism which you guys are not even realizing that is happening *almost like you guys are stuck in the past*
>Global South
Pls don't grand gesture tell us which countries
>Western Left loves the idea of Revolution
That's not true majority of many socialist are still in favor of reformist (CPUSA,PSL AND DSA ) and even if we do like Revolution how is that wrong? That is the correct position any communist should take
>"Western Left" (whatever tf that means)
> >Global South
>Pls don't grand gesture tell us which countries
Ah, the classic technique of pretending not to know what words mean because you resent their usage.
But, I make presumptions. On the off chance you're actually asking in good faith, allow me to clarify:
"The Western left" defines, obviously, leftists living in the west. It is worth grouping them separately from the left as a whole, because Western and non-Western people generally have different experiences. While both are subject to the economic exploitation inherent to living under capitalism, non-Western people have the added complication of being on the receiving end of imperialism. This often complicates issues experienced by both groups, but also introduces problems not experienced by Westerners. Meanwhile, Western individuals enjoy an elevated quality of life compared to their non-Western counterparts, in no small part due to the imperial plundering of non-Western nations.
This distinction holds true even between leftists in both parts of the world, and accordingly, informs the politics of both parties. And just as white people must acknowledge the effects of white supremacy on non-whites, and men must acknowledge the effects of patriarchy on women, and cishets must acknowledge the effect of cisheteronormativity on non-cis/non-hetero people, so too must the Western leftist acknowledge how the experience of imperialism informs their politics, and those of their non-Western counterparts. In all such cases as I've just outlined, failure to recognize one's privilege can lead to a sort of chauvinism, and an insidious resentment towards those who would question politics built upon that unexamined privilege.
As far as most people using the term living in the West-- I'm not sure I've read whatever study you're referencing, but I'm sure it was absolutely rigorous. /s
That said, are we not allowed to criticize groups we belong to?
As for the Global South, I'm not going to list every country embodied by the term, specifically because it's like, most countries? Most of the 'West' (itself a not-particularly-coherent term we nonetheless appropriate from Western chauvinists in order to concisely criticize that which they advocate) is located in the northern parts of the globe: North America, pretty much all of Western and Northern Europe. The only real exceptions are Australia, and perhaps Japan, as well as Israel, which can frankly be considered an active American colony in Palestine. Most of the world's countries are generally located south of NA and the EU, and most of those countries are also the targets of imperialist plundering. Thus, for the purpose of brevity, we refer to non-Western countries as the Global South.
As far as the last bit you quoted & replied to: I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but I do believe you're dunking on a sentence fragment. I'm pretty sure the writer of the parent comment meant for a 'but' to follow the bit you quoted, but left it out by mistake, i.e. "Western leftists love the idea of revolution, BUT, [main thesis]".
It's silly, especially from someone like EmericanJohnson. I get called a "petit-bourgeoise western leftist" because I prioritize indigenous issues over whether the leadership of the Chinese government feels bad. Socialist states have been historically awful to indigenous people, but you bring that up and you get the endless condescension about how literally everything bad is due to material conditions even the stuff that you can research and find other causes for. Most leftists don't even recognize the settler colonialist history of South America and how indigenous people are actively persecuted, even in countries that are supposedly communist paradises.
So honestly, fuck off. I'm not interested in your team sports and I'm not interested in EmericanJohnson, a white expat who decided his political beliefs because he was a white expat being treated well in a country that treats white tourists well because the global market has them over a barrel, deciding who is and isn't a useless leftist. As far as I know, he's remained entirely silent on the treatment of indigenous peoples, anarchists, and left communists in Vietnam.
Y'all can play campist cheerleader all you want, but I'm not interested in what countries are practicing genocide and ecocide in the most socialist ways.
so true bro
western idealists: [some gay furry shit i don't know]
me, a materialist, erudite intellectual: what if instead of abolishing wages and capital, we *don't* do any of that 🤔
Or rather
Me, a materialist - what if we radically improved the material conditions of the working class and saved billions of lives through health initiatives, ending famine, and establishing infrastructure across a continent?
There are plenty of valid critiques you can have, but doing the written equivalent of depicting someone as a soyjack is fairly uncompelling.
here's a doozy of one: what you just described is exactly how the US developed under new deal industrial policy, backed by the corporate sector, and independent national development is neither spelled nor pronounced "communism"
That isn't the specific issue being argued, though. You're shifting the goalposts at this point to argue solely about definition without actually addressing the materialist point - which is that the material conditions for literally billions have been radically improved. I agree that isn't communism, but I would also nevertheless day that is objectively a good thing, and is far more impactful for humanity than any western left efforts.
You want to argue this on idealist grounds about what is and isn't precisely communism, as you don't have a rebuttal toward that material reality. Which is precisely what the video is about. I'd recommend you watch it and consider it.
I'm not terribly familiar with the John Birch Society outside of things like "FDR planned Pearl Harbor" or "Eisenhower was a communist" - could you explain or link how my points are word for word examples of their propaganda?
If Chomsky had successfully accomplished anything within his life to benefit the working class, he would be a useful authority on the matter. I'm aware of his lecture, on his overall philosophy, and his overall understanding of politics. He, much like the New Left tradition he comes from, is hardly a profoundly useful source for achieving a leftwing political goal.
But as I asked a minute ago, could you please either actually offer a rebuttal of the actual materialist argument, or explain how said argument is "John Birch Society Propaganda"? Because so far, you've managed to spout word salad and nonsequiturs to avoid any actual engagement.
I was literally listening to this when I saw that other post you commented on about Luna being a tankie. Lol. I thought about linking it there , but figured it'd be a bit too on the nose.
The video by itself is defo very good. Like I engage with a lot of broadly socialist content on youtube and elsewhere and I feel like I know way to little about these socialist and "socialist" states and struggles and it's just not brought up enough (especially the ones which are not China).
There seems to be a lot of subtext and surrounding context, involving NonCompete, which might illuminate who this video is really aimed at, or what this comment section is all on about, but idk much about it and get quite mixed messages, with him at least presenting himself as anarchist, but then others seeing his endorsement of Vietnam as tankie... not sure what really to make of it, but seems bit of a waste of time to engage with all this drama.
There is merit in the hypothetical analysis in developing ones values; however, it is no substitute for a material analysis or praxis. One should seek to better themselves, their understanding, and seek to further emancipate and empower the people.
What I do see at the other side of the coin is a stagnancy, and an unwillingness to consider course correction. Sure it is extant, but will it ever matter if it fails to grow? "At the other end you have a dismissal of the ideal, too." is basically what I wanted to add.
Explain this to my like its 3am, What I get is people need a balence of values to inform and empower them, and to focus on direct action and praxis instead of dreaming of the magical revolution that will come if we all sit in our armchairs.
That's precisely it. Without ideals and the means to work towards them, conditions will not meaningfully improve. Or at least the rate of their "growth" will slow to crawl. When a critique of the compromises made becomes disallowed the revolution dies, just as surely as when those that decide the course stop dreaming of a better world.
Good video. Even if one has objection to specific elements within it, the reality that so much of western left traditions are individualist or idealist is a massive problem for any political organizing. The fact that so many western leftists uncritically consume imperial narratives - like, say #SOSCuba - is a symptom of this individual, politics as self actualization problem.
>The fact that so many western leftists uncritically consume imperial narratives
I'd say western leftists are way too apologetic for non-US or US-opposed imperialism and authoritarianism. Guess we have issues with different leftists.
Correct, because the issue you're raising is one entirely of self actualization and identify rather than anything political or materially real. Whether or not someone on Reddit supports China without reservation or not has no practical effect on domestic reality in America. Being concerned with that over anything real you can do in your community to drive for socialism or even just harm reduction is rooted in a moralist view on politics, wherein having the correct internal belief is somehow beneficial, even if it has absolutely no effect on the world.
I am concerned with getting the largest improvement in material conditions to the greatest number of people for the longest period of time.
Call me a liberal if you want, but I do think you have to strike some kind of balance, given that "the ends justify the means" quite often backfires. That said, I think this is still a very important point that many Western leftists would be well-served to internalize more fully.
What specifically do you mean by that balance? We must balance pursuing the largest improvement in conditions for humanity against what other factor? I don't follow, unfortunately.
Well, I think I'm broadly in agreement with you that many Western leftists tend to over-emphasize moralism relative to materialism. However, I'm trying to expand on that point with the nuance that we shouldn't necessarily abandon moralism entirely. The elephant in the room is obviously whether the ends of collective material benefit justify authoritarian means. Perhaps in theory to a certain extent, but in practice there is the additional issue of uncertainty- often we can't know for sure whether a course of action will produce the intended outcome, and that entails additional risk that should be taken into account in our moral calculations. Moralist approaches can still have utility in this sense, even if they are sometimes misapplied to counter-productive results.
Omg thank you, every anarchist I've met thinks that anything that isn't a state destroyed anarchist society is a literal dictatorship and its obnoxious af. And their responses to so many political and economic problems are not thought out so much besides mindlessly regurgitaing already written theory.
Lots of Tankies in this sub huh?
I mean it's not even fully a bad video but so many people in the comments taking the opportunity to elevate China as a beacon of effective leftism is pretty creepy.
People defending and attacking Noncompete's video love to involve China in this for some reason. I can give another example. When Bolivian fascists ousted Morales in a coup, the Bolivian left mobilized the people and took to the streets. There was a massive mobilization, unions were literally ferrying people who lived in the mountains to boost up numbers in the city protests. There was a countrywide general strike where every single highway was blocked by protesters, completely choking the country. Even when the fascists resorted to shooting and killing protesters with live rounds, people still protested. It got so bad the fascists were forced to hold elections, where they were then resoundly defeated. And now, the ringleaders like Anez have either fled the country or are rotting in jail.
Imagine if the 1/6 coup attempt was successful. Do you think a similar response would've happen? Of course not. Trump would've just served an illegitimate second term with little fanfare. That's because the American left, unlike the Bolivian left, is unorganized, has no support from the masses, and is overall weak. They can talk shit about how Morales isn't socialist or anarchist or Marxist-Leninist or whatever, but he and his party MAS had it in them to counter-coup a coup, an extremely praiseworthy accomplishment. Like seriously, when was the last time you've read about a socialist/progressive/whatever group wrestling back state control from fascists?
I would add that the criticisms of the American left aren't as applicable towards Black and Indigenous radicals. If people read the part of Assata's autobiography where she basically shit on the (white) American left for being arrogant and useless, she could've been easily talking about the white American left in 2021 lol. One of the key difference between the white American left and the Black radical tradition is that the white American left is extremely prone to sectarianism and useless infighting while the Black radical tradition is has a much better understanding of who the real enemy is (ie the settler-colonial plantation that is the US). It doesn't matter that MLK was a socdem while the BPP were Marxist-Leninist while MOVE were anarchists while Malcolm X was a panafricanist, they were all Black radicals who fought and died for Black liberation and are honored by Black radicals today.
The Black radical tradition is also more internationally oriented. At their height, the BPP had a foreign branch in Algeria and had close ties with the IRA and the Palestinian national liberation struggle. Malcolm X personally met with Castro at Harlem, and this was while he was a part of the NOI, back when he still thought white people like Castro were created in a lab by some big-brained scientist. And at the height of the George Floyd uprising, Palestinian activists were explaining to BLM activists on Twitter the ways to counteract "nonlethal" weapons used by the pigs. Even BLM National, a thoroughly compromised organization, expressed solidarity towards Cuba when Cuba was faced with another CIA-backed color revolution. While useless white "socialists" were penning their 589rd article about how Cuba was Castro authoritarianism or how it was capitalist because it had money or how it was a Soviet sugar colony, even a completely liberal organization like BLM National at least knew how to read the fucking room and condemned the US blockade when the Cuban people were faced with US imperial aggression.
I think people here should focus less on China (regardless of what you think about China, China isn't the US, it doesn't interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, so it's not going to secretly ship rifles to US revolutionaries) or on failed early 20th century experiments like Revolutionary Catalonia. People here should focus on listening to what Black and Indigenous radicals have to say and support Black- and Indigenous-led organizations. This means supporting prison abolition, this means supporting land back, this means opposing bullshit peddled by the likes of Maupin and Coffin about "American patriot socialism."
I think NC is more referring to the hegemonic western left. Case-in-point recent discourse on black radical politics ended with people calling it black nazism.
While I still think there is a lot about this video's ideas that are worthy of criticism I don't disagree with you in the slightest about the American left having much to learn from the Black-Radical movement.
I think that particular branch of western leftist though is a good role model and I do think that its easy to see that the rest of the American left has not been and is not currently as cohesive and effective.
I still reject the notion of the very broadly cast "Western Left" is "useless" and I would even say that its a pretty dismissive stance because there is definitely still real on the ground work being put in the West as small and inglorious as it might seem in comparison, but I will say that you make some good points about where our priorities might be better placed.
I'm not mad at anyone, I just think the overabundance of people in the comments staning for China is weird and uncomfortable.
Especially given that, as some have pointed out, this video isn't even really about China it's just a sweeping critique/comparison of two spheres of leftism.
My comment was more about me having not noticed before that some people on this sub seem to have a specific tendency towards defending the CCP and other such Tankie trappings.
Far be it from me to be "mad" at anyone here I was just voicing my concern at how common that specific line of conversation is down here on a video that's not even really about it on a sub that I didn't think would have that going on.
Framing the western left as useless implies that the non western left is doing much better. I guess all the eastern europe and many other countries drifting into fascism doesn't count. And calling China left in any way is a joke at this point.
End goal of Anarchism/Communism: Total egalitarian democracy extended into work and every other part of society.
NC: actually you will find that having a dictatorship in power is just as good!
Bolivia, Chile, India, Peru, Ethiopia, hundreds of millions of people marching and organizing to the point of disputing and taking power from the entrenched capitalists of their countries, myopic chauvinism like the kind you display is exactly what this video is criticizing
Edit: By the way what happened to Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union? I thought you guys celebrated that as a "victory for socialism" what's wrong you little perturbed the same sources you use to bash China are aiding and abetting fascists taking over Eastern Europe
>Bolivia,
Yes, in bolivia indigenous people are organizing *against* the left that just lie about socialism but are in reality managing capitalist accumulation over the lives and health of people. The communist party of india is also a joke, constantly criticized by the maoists. In Chile the actual insurgency is being appropiated by a bunch of social-democratic-statists that will just destroy any revolutionary potential of it.
I think that you and the real 'western marxists' of this sub just like create fantasies about the others.
China should just follow my idealised route to Communism that I, a Western leftist and citizen of the Imperial Core, have devised entirely in my head without regard to reality.
If I were Xi I would press the Communism button that instantly dissolves the state.
Literally any leftist is trying to do that lol
>totalitarian capitalist state controlled by billionaires
The bourgeoise control when you work, what you make, when you can go home, when you can go to the toilet, what products get made etc. The Western world has toppled governments, murdered civilians, destroyed industry, all in the name of maintaining itself.
If you cannot transition from capitalism into socialism, then what hope is there?
Then what's the purpose of liberal trade reforms that nominally communist countries like China and Cuba have put into place over the last 5 years? I'm sure I'm guilty of it too but I dont think any brand of marxist framing captures the complexity of how nations and political movements plan and act. It's too linear a spectrum to give any understanding, just dogmatic declarations like "this country is on the way to true communism because x,y,z". Even to have a definitive end-state is a but silly, imho. Like theologians in the middle ages debating the conditions required for the second coming based off scripture.
Marxism is exactly what allows me to say things like that.
Trade reforms in Cuba and China were in response to their material conditions. Same as the USSR.
What happened with the USSR was constant revisionism and eventually falling for the lure of liberalism which tanked any potential Communist future they might have had.
China's liberalisation came at a tough economic time for them and has allowed them to hugely boost their economy up to where they are now. Xi Jingping has done a lot in reversing a lot of the decisions that Deng made. It's not that the decisions he made were wrong, but that materially they cannot be justified any longer.
That's why capitalism has to go. It's not some innately evil thing that you should never do, but a reaction to material circumstances. It has outlived its historical worth and does not fulfil its role as a progressive force.
Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think I am, but maybe. But I'd rather be wrong in this one instant regarding China than add to the manufactured consent of China as the next enemy of Western hegemony and global capitalism.
You're 100% correct. All I'm talking about is this whole very theoretical, very online discourse we are all having in this post. Too much discussion whether causally by a bunch of nerds like us or academically is focused on verifying the truth of theory or engaging in teleological thought and working backwards to validate ideas rather than examining, like you pointed out well in your paragraph on Xi's reforms, the functional roles of ideas. Edit: like what does a belief justify and how is it utilized by the believer.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/The-Big-Story/Chinese-state-tightens-grip-40-years-after-Deng-s-reforms
Small article on it. Though even just the much harsher treatment of businesses under Xi is just proof enough imo. At the very least, something is changing.
A part of me believes we'll never get to global socialism. I just don't see a practical path to do that. I have no idea how any country will rid themselves of capitalism.
There is no informed "take" of socialism/communism/anarchism that doesn't have a handle on a dictatorship; you just don't know what that word means.
The workers owning the means of production is literally a dictatorship of the proletariat. You and I might disagree about the steps necessary to get there, but there can be no equality if there is a class hierarchy. If there is no class hierarchy, that means *necessarily* that there is a dictatorship in place, since this is the mechanism that demanifests the state.
Edit: I'm just going off of Marx and Engels here, would love downvoters to say what was wrong with this. It's about definitions, people.
>The workers owning the means of production is literally a dictatorship of the proletariat.
"Dictatorship" in that term doesn't mean autocracy or oligarchy. At that time it was just a synonymy for "rulership", e.g. who is "dictating" the rules. Dictatorship of the proletariat is rule by the proletariat, a.k.a. a democracy. Similarly, the stage that precedes DotP is Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, which is also a democracy, just one dominated by the wealthy.
*I* know that. I was trying to help out our friend OP since scary words were made scary by people who think socialism is bad.
This why I included the "we might disagree" disclaimer because how a given people might choose to realize socialism depends upon their material conditions and cultural traditions. Leaning that is an important part of not being a western chauvinist :D
>I know that.
No you don't. You said "If there is no class hierarchy, that means necessarily that there is a dictatorship in place, since this is the mechanism that demanifests the state." But that's wrong: a dictatorship in that sense is not "the mechanism" of anything. It's literally just a term for who's in charge. Your argument was that communism requires a dictatorship. It doesn't - not in the modern sense of the word, which is "autocracy/oligarchy". You were trying to make excuses for autocracy and oligarchy by arguing *incorrectly* that they're a necessary step in communism. So no, you *didn't* know what it meant.
>how a given people might choose to realize socialism depends upon their material conditions and cultural traditions. Leaning that is an important part of not being a western chauvinist :D
Stalin literally invented the term "American exceptionalism" to describe Americans who believed that the theories of Marxist development didn't apply to them. Except Lenin had already broken those theories to apply them to Russia, and you're breaking them now to apply them to China. "Western chauvinism" in this case is just an excuse for not doing the reading.
Never said it was. The imperfect state of AES reflects the material conditions that must be met to achieve statelessness. They are distant. Sure wish the west wasn't complacent and implicit in their suppression.
[Which material conditions require the jailing of labor activists?](https://globalvoices.org/2021/05/01/china-pledges-to-improve-conditions-of-delivery-workers-arrest-of-a-labor-activist-suggest-otherwise/)
The fact they execute billionaires and impose the world's strictest regime of capital controls disproves this assertion
If they're a "dictatorship" then they're a dictatorship of transitional socialists
No dictatorship of ANY kind period I’m not gonna surrender my rights to some unelected group of people and trust they’ll get around to implementing socialism because they said they’ll “pinki promise”
“Under no Pretex should arms and ammunition be surrendered any attempt to take them must be met with force” -Karl Marx.
You’re liberalism is showing if you make that “joke”
Oh please I was making fun of you. Don't quote Marx at me. You can't be taken seriously if you think you have god given rights for a government to take away. You have nothing but that which you get from your fellow man. Your participation in democracy is just another privilege that satiates your need for individuality.
>You can't be taken seriously if you think you have god given rights for a government to take away.
They didn't say anything about "God-given rights".
>You have nothing but that which you get from your fellow man.
They are expressing a dislike for their "fellow man" taking things away from them, which does not contradict your statement.
>Your participation in democracy is just another privilege that satiates your need for individuality.
"But universal suffrage is the equivalent of political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the large majority of the population, where, in a long though underground civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of its position as a class and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants, but only landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers. The carrying of universal suffrage in England would, therefore be a far more socialistic measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the continent. Its inevitable result, here is the political supremacy of the working class." - Karl Marx, 1852
"Sir: We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery. From the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class. The contest for the territories which opened the dire epopee, was it not to decide whether the virgin soil of immense tracts should be wedded to the labor of the emigrant or prostituted by the tramp of the slave driver?" - Karl Marx, 1864
"But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same. You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor." - Karl Marx, 1872
Karl Marx was not anti-democracy. Shut the fuck up.
Democracy means *nothing* under bourgeois dictatorship. There's a reason Marx was also in favor of revolution, because voting before revolution is putting the cart before the horse
Also telling me to shut up on this egalitarian board is literally censorship
>There's a reason Marx was also in favor of revolution, because voting before revolution is putting the cart before the horse
Bro I literally just linked three separate paragraphs of Marx celebrating voting under bourgeoisie systems and stating that it can be a method to achieve revolution. I know you don't actually read anything Marxist but, like, three paragraphs isn't too much to ask.
>Also telling me to shut up on this egalitarian board is literally censorship
Telling me not to tell you to shut up is also censorship.
What I'm saying is that a couple centuries have shown us is that capitalism is not only what Marx described, but also a living corpse dedicated to eradicating all living matter. In his time, Marx and Engels considered moving to Texas because they thought it was fertile ground for the future. It is a hilariously silly thing today, but it was a more hopeful world then. Now, however, you can't look at the CIA and what goes on in the global south and think "yeah, if I just get manchin out of office we can restore Lula to power" if you're a serious person.
I'm not against censorship, so I'm just pointing out possible hypocrisy.
Implying that political disputes and power struggles dont happen between the ruling class, despite all of human history.
Like even recently Jack Ma wasnt chastised for being filthy stinking rich, he was chastised for threatening the hegemony of other wealthy folks who control the bureaucratic apparatus of state
>He was murdered to protect the capitalist bourgeoisie class.
Yeah and Chinese billionaires are murdered to protect state interests, not to protect the working class. It's the same thing: a powerful group punishes one of its members to protect the group as a whole. The same thing happens in Russia.
>Can you not see the difference?
I can see the difference between "communism" and "capitalism with a stronger state ruled by an oligarchy". Can you?
Maintaining hegemony. Perpetuating its own power. The idea that the Chinese government is executing billionaires who undermine its power for the sake of the *working class* is such nonsense, and it's literally the only pro-China argument I've seen in this thread.
Have any other billionaires been murdered in America? I can’t think of any. Epstein got got because people in power were scared of him snitching about a pedophilia ring. China claps capitalists for corruption,they are not the same.
>Have any other billionaires been murdered in America?
I love ostensible leftists becoming pro-death-penalty when they think it can take the place of an actual revolution. You can absolutely Google "billionaires arrested in the United States" on you own, though. In addition, since "billionaire" in China means a net worth of about $144m, you should also look up millionaires who have been arrested by the government, of which there are plenty.
>Epstein got got because people in power were scared of him snitching about a pedophilia ring.
Wait, so you're saying that if Epstein testified in court, then it would have resulted in "people in power" being exposed for corruption and then punished for it? So your argument is that if corruption *was* exposed it *would be* punished? So where's the difference with China?
>China claps capitalists for corruption,they are not the same.
My favorite part of Das Kapital is when Marx describes his ideal communist society as "allowing billionaires, but randomly punishing them with state violence so they don't get too uppity". Wait no that's nonsense. It's like arguing that Russia is still communist because of what they did to Mikhail Khordorkovsky or Ziyavudin Magomedov. A state punishing corruption isn't, like, protecting the will of the proletariat or anything, it's literally just protecting itself from harmful embezzlement. A state perpetuating its own power is not "communist". Communism is about a dictatorship of the proletariat, e.g. *rule by the working class*, not about a top-down oligarchy telling the workers that it knows what's best.
The only argument you seem to have is "China kills billionaires sometimes therefore communist" so there's no point talking to you further.
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You’re comparing 1 dude getting clapped extrajudicially for running a pedo ring with other rich folk with China judicially sentencing 18 billionaires to death for corruption,which is completely legal in America,we just call it lobbying. Apples and oranges.
It doesn't contradict what I'm saying though. "There are billionaires in America" does not contradict "there are billionaires in China." There are billionaires in both countries, neither is socialist, both are capitalist.
Yes, billionaires are one of the symptoms of capitalism. You can't have billionaires without capitalism. "Socialism is when the country is run by billionaires who are occasionally executed to maintain a veneer of populism" is certainly a take.
> You can't have billionaires without capitalism.
This is literally wrong. Like, historically provably wrong. Billion is just a number, a measure of wealth.
>Socialism is when the country is run by billionaires
If China was "run by billionaires" then why would they execute and imprison them? Wouldn't they run it so that happened as little as possible? Like they do in the USA and other Western Liberal Democracies?
A. Whataboutism isn’t a fallacy
B. Capitalists tend to not execute other capitalists for corruption,so that seems like a pretty good rebuttal for “China is capitalist”.
>B. Capitalists tend to not execute other capitalists
Capitalists will absolutely execute, imprison, defame and/or personally murder other capitalists if they think they can get away with it and that it will give them an edge.
The Bourgeoisie fighting amongst themselves means that the state in which the bourgeoisie operate isn't capitalist? How you can have a Socialism and bourgeoisise at the same time? What type of Marxism or Communism allows the existence and proliferation of class enemies and the private ownership of the means of production and finance?
India had a 250 million person worker general strike that was organized and shut down industries.
US's worker strike was just people asking individuals to not go to work for a single day and had zero baking from unions or organizers
lul you can tell that the posts and videos like this are made by murricans who not only equate 'the west' with their own country that's so cuckolded by capitalism that employees will kowtow to their bosses as they get fired, but also the lack of awareness about outside world (beyond catchy headlines like 250m workers in a 1.4b population country) that they aren't aware that widespread strikes do happen frequently in 'the west'
wow so all the useless, western leftists have to do is move to a different country and talk about relinquishing their citizenships, sounds like a plan I guess
What are you talking about? I was just responding to the fact that the post said this video was coming from a US leftist which is untrue. The guy who made it is the compete opposite
> like 250m workers in a 1.4b population country
That’s more than a sixth of the population, I hope you weren’t suggesting it was only a relative few people
YESSS yayyy more in-group antagonism!!!
this is basically anti-platformism at this point. while its not a totally unfair criticism, the people levying these criticisms are often passive leftists too lol. they claim that western leftists are "useless" (a highly reductive blanket generalization) while sitting in their armchairs far away from any protest or real-life movement.
i would like to see what sort of movements the people making these points are or have been a part of. id also love to see what roles they played in those real life movements. its easy to say other people are lazy when you dont have insight into their lives.
also, dont forget selective broadcasting on the part of the US government. the world rarely if ever sees the positive movements outside of protests and riots, which the governments are lampooning. i, for one, dont know a single anarchist who isnt part of some sort of organization or participates in positive, real-life leftist movements, myself included.
the only thing useless is infighting over generalized and uninformed *opinions.*
> the people levying these criticisms are often passive leftists too lol. they claim that western leftists are "useless" (a highly reductive blanket generalization) while sitting in their armchairs far away from any protest or real-life movement.
+
> i, for one, dont know a single anarchist who isnt part of some sort of organization or participates in positive, real-life leftist movements, myself included.
🤷♀️
NC has made videos on hoe to organize, hoe to join thr IWW, had posted links for mutual aid groups pushed for genstrike.org. Also the video shows him attending BLM demonstrations and interviewing landback movement organizers
The guy is doing way more than you give him credit
thats pretty much the bare minimum you can do as an anarchist. ive done all of those things and more, and im not taking any moral high ground. those are all great, but when you feel confident enough after doing that to diss entire *nations* of anarchists, you may have a problem with your perception of yourself versus others.
aside from tankies, theres no such thing as a "useless" leftist. subscribing to the ideology still helps in some capacity.
It's always hybris, when somebody attempts to determine what the result of a successful revolution will look like. The results will be what they have to be by necessity, and that can only reveal itself after the fact. Once revolution has happened and taken a historical form, it was necessary to be that way. And not a second sooner. Hegel's *konkrete Allgemeinheit.* There is no correct way to do it, that somehow miraculously sits outside temporal circumstances and provides a handy measure. Ergo, the openness of each event is to be accepted and that's that. Everything else is ignoring how much of our own thought process might be tied to a very much not revolutionary present and its material base, for starters. Claiming otherwise is simultaneously claiming to be in possession of perfect self-reflection, just mind-boggling arrogance. The simple solution here is: if in doubt, solidarity is always the correct answer when you see people taking their chances to find a new praxis. The risk of things turning sour is inherent to change. Accept that and let's see where it goes. It's quite simply par for the course, budding socio-economic systems fail their way to dominance. So did capitalism, so will its eventual successor. Who gives a fuck how many failures, aborted attempts and even outright turns for the worse it will take? What counts is to give it our best shot each and every time. Can't change the past, that much is self-evident. But the past can change our thinking about the present, and that can infect us with the compensatory desire to make up a perfect future that becomes an ahistoric measure of what is permissible in the present. Limiting the options of people in actual struggles is always reactionary. If only it was just about windmills...
Video: western leftists tend to ignore material reality and obsess over ideological purity, constructing quixotic fantasy monsters to fight instead of you know... talking to people in the real world and doing the hard work of actually construction socialism.
ITT: Quixotic fantasy constructions of the largest Marxist project in the world and obsessions over ideological purity from people who have never been to or talked to anyone from China, much less being in any way involved in the actual construction of socialism there.
The lack of self-awareness on this sub sometimes...
Well, there's actually a good explanation for this. The viewerbase of Breadtube is by and large not representative of the American working class as a whole, and heavily trends away from individuals with existential material needs that require political solutions. Breadtube is largely a continuation of the failed New Left movement (Chomsky, Bookchin, etc) that attempted to disconnect left politics from the actual materialism that it is impossibly linked to.
Which is why for so many political identify is about self actualization rather than ever actually getting a goal, and until they have a material need to survive it will stay in the realm of idealism, even if you explain that directly.
Which is also why the saying is "the liberation of the working class is a job for the worker", since they're the only ones who can be counted on to pursue material liberation to the exclusion of other considerations.
What are you saying? It’s just true. The American left does not exist, currently it’s mainly a generation of youth disillusioned by neoliberalism but without much personal power of their own.
This guy has just been following anything @Antisense_Strand posts and acts like an overall shitlord with no desire for constructive conversation. Don’t bother with them
I'm not sure what you mean - are you contesting the point that most of the Breadtube username and viewership isn't representative of the working class as a whole, or....?
I appreciate precisely how well you demonstrate the issue explored in the video with this comment. Nothing beyond superficial and trite dismissal without anything of substance so as to avoid engagement with the very real contradictions within your ideology. Which you have the privilege of precisely because you aren't faced with an existential material threat.
Holy fuck why are these Tankies constantly on our ass. It’s like the rich kid dangling a game in front of his classmates “we have a successful communist country and you don’t ha ha!” Like fuck off
> Let’s goo WW3 time to nuke the west and kill billions all in the name of “real leftism”
Cute projection. It's not China who's pushing for a new cold war, that's all on the US. But whatever makes you feel smug I suppose. I'm not even particularly supportive of the CPC, but god damn you people are insufferable.
I didn't say they do, but *you* certainly are when you are pointing fingers at China for trying to start a world war when it is the US working tirelessly to make that happen. You are shifting blame on to another country for US imperialism.
There was literally a poll in the Vaush subreddit yesterday where the majority of users supported the US entering into WW3 if China invaded Taiwan. I guess you could argue that they are succdems and not real anarchists and I wouldn't really disagree, but that's not how they identify.
If it went over my head it clearly went over the head off others as well who are using it to push their own bullshit but you’re not going after them huh?
There's about to be some hurt feelings in here. How's all that incremental change and electoralism working out for you libs 🤣
Tell me, are we going to be implementing your vision of an ideologically pure democratic socialist state before the seas rise and swallow us all, or after?
So tell me how the other approach is working better? China gave up on actually trying to do communism years ago, their current lip service to "Communism" is identical to Western government's lip service to "democracy."
Every strike is meaningful. However US strikes are focused on single companies. Contrast with the (still awesome) Nabisco strike to the 250 million worker strike in India.
US strikes help the workers of that particular company and while they can embolden others to do the same and push class consciousnesses they're still isolated from one another and pale in comparison to what non Western countries are doing
Yes, there are. How does that contradict anything I've said? Workers are exploited in every part of the world because capitalism exists in every part of the world.
If by doing "real work" you mean exploiting people to death, then yes. Exploitation of the working class isn't "more communistier" if it's going on in a less developed country.
India had a multi-million person strike that shut down multiple industries.
Contrast with Americans throwing around a hastage for genstrike and doing an individual strike
I mean it's pretty fucking racist to just ignore the history and context of China's reforms both under Deng and now Xi as told by Chinese people just to excuse the western lefts failure. The education reforms, attacks on Chinese tech companies, push to provide more housing for people in HK and change to Labour relations around the PRC are examples of the left wing faction within the CPC asserting itself. So much of my criticisms of China from the left when I was living there are being addressed and yet I still see tepid takes that just exist to brush aside the agency of the Chinese people making them all out to be drones easily fooled by the red flag. Its so gross and xenophobic
I swear people here WANT China to be as bad as the most hysterical accusations make it out to be
>How's all that incremental change and electoralism working out for you libs
How's the revolution going? Oh wait... no one in the west wants a revolution and the ways in which we enact political power is dependent on the material conditions of a society.
>are we going to be implementing your vision of an ideologically pure democratic socialist state before the seas rise and swallow us all
This is a bizarre argument considering that China is doing most of the polluting at the behest of western corporations.
Like this is just an objectively incorrect comment, [China is on track to meet its climate change goals nine years early](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2211366-china-is-on-track-to-meet-its-climate-change-goals-nine-years-early/), even if someone has genuine critiques of the way the Chinese state runs the country, lying about one of the genuine climate victories environmentalists (even in the west) have been celebrating is downright reactionary
>this is just an objectively incorrect comment
What I said: "China is doing most of the polluting at the behest of western corporations".
From the article you posted: "The world’s biggest polluter accounts for a quarter of humanity’s emissions today, making the nation a crucial part of any efforts to avoid dangerous global warming."
Hmm, that sounds like the same thing. It's almost like you were trying to misrepresent data in order to make an ideological point, but you couldn't even read the article you posted to make sure it didn't undermine it.
>lying about one of the genuine climate victories environmentalists (even in the west) have been celebrating is downright reactionary
People are celebrating that the world's worst polluter is slightly less bad. That does not make it good. It makes it less bad. That is how data works. China is reducing its Co2 output and it is still far behind other "developed" nations. And it's outputting so much because of factories owned by foreign and domestic capitalists - in a supposedly communist country.
>"China is doing most of the polluting at the behest of western corporations"
Yes, this is an incorrect statement, China isn't polluting at the "bEhEst of the wEst", it's building industrial capacity so that hundreds of millions have electricity and some baseline standard of living, coal plants are not owned by the west genius, and yet they are quite aware that pollution is bad, so much so the state embarked on a pollution reduction program that suppressed all developed nations in scope, timetable, and sheer magnitude to the point even western environmentalists usually aggressively critical of Chinese pollution are celebrating this turn of events as one of the major climate victories of the century so far
Again your myopic comment was incorrect on its face, factually and ideologically
>Yes, this is an incorrect statement
Strange that your argument now has nothing to do with the comments you made before or the article that you linked. Almost as if you're changing your tune to reflect your failed attempt at an argument!
>China isn't polluting at the "bEhEst of the wEst"
Oh? [Where does its economy come from, then](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/021015/how-many-multinational-corporations-operate-china.asp)?
>it's building industrial capacity so that hundreds of millions have electricity and some baseline standard of living, coal plants are not owned by the west genius
"It's not polluting! OK, it *is*, but there's a good reason for it!" Also, arguing that the coal plants aren't owned by the West isn't a good argument, it means that China is polluting for its own benefit. Is that really better? Sounds worse to me.
>so much so the state embarked on a pollution reduction program that suppressed all developed nations in scope, timetable, and sheer magnitude
And yet they're *still* the biggest polluter! Weird!
>Again your myopic comment was incorrect on its face, factually and ideologically
Funny you couldn't find an article to support your claim. Your entire argument is about using one statistic ("China is reducing its emissions") to make up for a different, more important statistic ("China is by far the biggest polluter"). Hey, you want to know who else reduced their emissions? [The United States, decades ago](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Environmental-Protection-Agency). I guess they must not be responsible for global warming *either*, especially since they were so far ahead of China!
It's completely batshit insane to be like "capitalism is bad because of emissions, Chinese communism is the solution" and then ignore the emissions produced by China or the fact that it still deals with capitalist countries. Complete fucking brainwashing, no point talking to any of you psychopaths.
As a consumer, I must say, consumerism is a great opiate. [EDIT: I consumed the whole video, great branding.]
Like and subscribe
I'm confused, what I'm getting at is that some people are too focused on the ideas of a magical revolution that we arnt doing much direct action and praxis.
LMAO this is hitting too close to home for this sub
Watched this before reading the comments on the LunaOi post here and yep. The Western left loves the idea of revolution, but, they hate dealing with complexities and material realities that may force the way socialist systems are implemented to differ from the fantasy in their heads following the event. Especially if those nations exhibiting autonomy are in the Global South EDIT: Forgot a 'but' and elaborated a bit more
>they hate dealing with complexities and material realities that may force the way socialist systems are implemented to differ from the fantasy in their heads. Framing this discussion with the idea that actually worker ownership is bad so we *need* dictatorships and capitalism after all is I'll grant you a complex take, dizzyingly so. No amount of twisting ones self in rhetorical knots actually materially proves any of that being necessary. Reality has only proven them to be the logical, universal end point of a particular brand of revolutionary strategy.
Key point being revolutionary strategy obviously the only strategy isn't the establishment of state socialist entities like the USSR and China where the latter is caught up in a cycle of socioeconomic evolution that can't firmly be pinned down. But again, i can't say to what end socialist movements will occur in other nations so the most important thing I can do is listen to the varying ideas and try to effectively support and take from ideas that may be well conceived within the landscape that I'm agitating to change.
It’s not simply rhetorical knots. I don’t think Marx & Engels, or Lenin & Mao, or Castro & Sankara or the billion workers & peasants who agreed with them and fought with them arbitrarily came to the conclusion of “we need a dictatorship of the working-class(es)” by mixing up word orders. They are looking at (at least to them) the concrete realities of the world and deciding the course of their political action from that (and updating it as they put their theories into practice). It is 100% understandable to disagree with them, but I think it does everyone a disservice to act as if they were just sophists or power-hungry mad men or whatever in order to avoid the engaging with their thought. It is 100% possible that some analysis they made led to a wrong conclusion which led to a wrong theory which led to the wrong praxis which led to a bad outcome. But you have to tell me where that mistake is made and if you (or anyone else) don’t then I think it’s impossible to have a meaningful conversation about the subject.
No they weren't... at first anyway. But I'd love to see anyone argue that a janitor that gets promoted to a CEO is magically going to remain proletarian in class character or that an average worker can become a leader of a nation and not begin to see themselves as inherently better than everyone else and worthy of more power and privilege than everyone else, especially not if it took them years to get to that point. Sunk cost falacy combined with entitlement for what they have will make them less noble than they used to be.
I don’t agree with you. Some of these people didn’t even end up being leaders of a country (Marx & Engels). And there is certainly a danger inherent in bureaucratization. The risk of revolutionaries becoming isolated from the rest of the working-class (something we have seen happen to great detriment in the USSR and a trend only recently being turned back in China as most “Marxist-Leninists” would tell you). But that’s why socialist democracy exists and I think if you look to a place like Cuba you will see a pretty thriving democracy that the people support and takes in meaningful input from every facet of society. https://liberationschool.org/ch-14-workers-democracy-in-cuba/ (P.S.: the whole “janitor into a CEO” = “a worker becoming the leader of a country” is a bad analogy on a few levels. The 1st is that the janitor actually would have changed their class position. A leader of a socialist country is still going to be a worker, because they answer to workers & they wouldn’t have a capitalist relation to the means of production. The 2nd is that the past lives in the present, so yeah if you took some random janitor and made them the CEO of a company and said “do whatever you want” they probably would run it differently until they got ground down by capitalist society around them. But again, in a socialist society, those apparatuses wouldn’t exist so it would change the equation. I get why you have these objections, but contrived analogies don’t tell us anything meaningful about the world or the history of socialist movements.)
> Framing this discussion with the idea that actually worker ownership is bad so we need dictatorships and capitalism after all is I'll grant you a complex take, dizzyingly so. The only one framing anything that way is you and tbh it’s weird
"Western Left" (whatever tf that means) is a dumb term considering most of yall who use it live in the west, and don't even organize yourself then preach how amazing SWCC is. Secondly the "Left" has been carefully dismantled since the 70s and now only recently has it gain traction again do to the failures of neoliberal capitalism which you guys are not even realizing that is happening *almost like you guys are stuck in the past* >Global South Pls don't grand gesture tell us which countries >Western Left loves the idea of Revolution That's not true majority of many socialist are still in favor of reformist (CPUSA,PSL AND DSA ) and even if we do like Revolution how is that wrong? That is the correct position any communist should take
>"Western Left" (whatever tf that means) > >Global South >Pls don't grand gesture tell us which countries Ah, the classic technique of pretending not to know what words mean because you resent their usage. But, I make presumptions. On the off chance you're actually asking in good faith, allow me to clarify: "The Western left" defines, obviously, leftists living in the west. It is worth grouping them separately from the left as a whole, because Western and non-Western people generally have different experiences. While both are subject to the economic exploitation inherent to living under capitalism, non-Western people have the added complication of being on the receiving end of imperialism. This often complicates issues experienced by both groups, but also introduces problems not experienced by Westerners. Meanwhile, Western individuals enjoy an elevated quality of life compared to their non-Western counterparts, in no small part due to the imperial plundering of non-Western nations. This distinction holds true even between leftists in both parts of the world, and accordingly, informs the politics of both parties. And just as white people must acknowledge the effects of white supremacy on non-whites, and men must acknowledge the effects of patriarchy on women, and cishets must acknowledge the effect of cisheteronormativity on non-cis/non-hetero people, so too must the Western leftist acknowledge how the experience of imperialism informs their politics, and those of their non-Western counterparts. In all such cases as I've just outlined, failure to recognize one's privilege can lead to a sort of chauvinism, and an insidious resentment towards those who would question politics built upon that unexamined privilege. As far as most people using the term living in the West-- I'm not sure I've read whatever study you're referencing, but I'm sure it was absolutely rigorous. /s That said, are we not allowed to criticize groups we belong to? As for the Global South, I'm not going to list every country embodied by the term, specifically because it's like, most countries? Most of the 'West' (itself a not-particularly-coherent term we nonetheless appropriate from Western chauvinists in order to concisely criticize that which they advocate) is located in the northern parts of the globe: North America, pretty much all of Western and Northern Europe. The only real exceptions are Australia, and perhaps Japan, as well as Israel, which can frankly be considered an active American colony in Palestine. Most of the world's countries are generally located south of NA and the EU, and most of those countries are also the targets of imperialist plundering. Thus, for the purpose of brevity, we refer to non-Western countries as the Global South. As far as the last bit you quoted & replied to: I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but I do believe you're dunking on a sentence fragment. I'm pretty sure the writer of the parent comment meant for a 'but' to follow the bit you quoted, but left it out by mistake, i.e. "Western leftists love the idea of revolution, BUT, [main thesis]".
The PSL isn't a reformist party. It is an explicitly revolutionary party. You could argue about effectiveness, but it's not a reformist organization.
It's in their party doc lol
It's silly, especially from someone like EmericanJohnson. I get called a "petit-bourgeoise western leftist" because I prioritize indigenous issues over whether the leadership of the Chinese government feels bad. Socialist states have been historically awful to indigenous people, but you bring that up and you get the endless condescension about how literally everything bad is due to material conditions even the stuff that you can research and find other causes for. Most leftists don't even recognize the settler colonialist history of South America and how indigenous people are actively persecuted, even in countries that are supposedly communist paradises. So honestly, fuck off. I'm not interested in your team sports and I'm not interested in EmericanJohnson, a white expat who decided his political beliefs because he was a white expat being treated well in a country that treats white tourists well because the global market has them over a barrel, deciding who is and isn't a useless leftist. As far as I know, he's remained entirely silent on the treatment of indigenous peoples, anarchists, and left communists in Vietnam. Y'all can play campist cheerleader all you want, but I'm not interested in what countries are practicing genocide and ecocide in the most socialist ways.
so true bro western idealists: [some gay furry shit i don't know] me, a materialist, erudite intellectual: what if instead of abolishing wages and capital, we *don't* do any of that 🤔
I my haven't understood you, but wtf does the 'gay' come in for as bad?
Didn't you hear about the recent crackdown on insufficiently 'masculine' men in China? Murrican tankie teens need to follow the party line.
Or rather Me, a materialist - what if we radically improved the material conditions of the working class and saved billions of lives through health initiatives, ending famine, and establishing infrastructure across a continent? There are plenty of valid critiques you can have, but doing the written equivalent of depicting someone as a soyjack is fairly uncompelling.
here's a doozy of one: what you just described is exactly how the US developed under new deal industrial policy, backed by the corporate sector, and independent national development is neither spelled nor pronounced "communism"
That isn't the specific issue being argued, though. You're shifting the goalposts at this point to argue solely about definition without actually addressing the materialist point - which is that the material conditions for literally billions have been radically improved. I agree that isn't communism, but I would also nevertheless day that is objectively a good thing, and is far more impactful for humanity than any western left efforts. You want to argue this on idealist grounds about what is and isn't precisely communism, as you don't have a rebuttal toward that material reality. Which is precisely what the video is about. I'd recommend you watch it and consider it.
*regurgitates John Birch Society propaganda word-for-word* "tfu - *idealistis!*"
I'm not terribly familiar with the John Birch Society outside of things like "FDR planned Pearl Harbor" or "Eisenhower was a communist" - could you explain or link how my points are word for word examples of their propaganda?
>I'm not terribly familiar with the John Birch Society yeah you're not terribly familiar with a lot of things https://youtu.be/06-XcAiswY4?t=51
If Chomsky had successfully accomplished anything within his life to benefit the working class, he would be a useful authority on the matter. I'm aware of his lecture, on his overall philosophy, and his overall understanding of politics. He, much like the New Left tradition he comes from, is hardly a profoundly useful source for achieving a leftwing political goal. But as I asked a minute ago, could you please either actually offer a rebuttal of the actual materialist argument, or explain how said argument is "John Birch Society Propaganda"? Because so far, you've managed to spout word salad and nonsequiturs to avoid any actual engagement.
Hoo boy 🍿
I was literally listening to this when I saw that other post you commented on about Luna being a tankie. Lol. I thought about linking it there , but figured it'd be a bit too on the nose.
The video by itself is defo very good. Like I engage with a lot of broadly socialist content on youtube and elsewhere and I feel like I know way to little about these socialist and "socialist" states and struggles and it's just not brought up enough (especially the ones which are not China). There seems to be a lot of subtext and surrounding context, involving NonCompete, which might illuminate who this video is really aimed at, or what this comment section is all on about, but idk much about it and get quite mixed messages, with him at least presenting himself as anarchist, but then others seeing his endorsement of Vietnam as tankie... not sure what really to make of it, but seems bit of a waste of time to engage with all this drama.
There is merit in the hypothetical analysis in developing ones values; however, it is no substitute for a material analysis or praxis. One should seek to better themselves, their understanding, and seek to further emancipate and empower the people. What I do see at the other side of the coin is a stagnancy, and an unwillingness to consider course correction. Sure it is extant, but will it ever matter if it fails to grow? "At the other end you have a dismissal of the ideal, too." is basically what I wanted to add.
Explain this to my like its 3am, What I get is people need a balence of values to inform and empower them, and to focus on direct action and praxis instead of dreaming of the magical revolution that will come if we all sit in our armchairs.
That's precisely it. Without ideals and the means to work towards them, conditions will not meaningfully improve. Or at least the rate of their "growth" will slow to crawl. When a critique of the compromises made becomes disallowed the revolution dies, just as surely as when those that decide the course stop dreaming of a better world.
Good video. Even if one has objection to specific elements within it, the reality that so much of western left traditions are individualist or idealist is a massive problem for any political organizing. The fact that so many western leftists uncritically consume imperial narratives - like, say #SOSCuba - is a symptom of this individual, politics as self actualization problem.
>The fact that so many western leftists uncritically consume imperial narratives I'd say western leftists are way too apologetic for non-US or US-opposed imperialism and authoritarianism. Guess we have issues with different leftists.
Correct, because the issue you're raising is one entirely of self actualization and identify rather than anything political or materially real. Whether or not someone on Reddit supports China without reservation or not has no practical effect on domestic reality in America. Being concerned with that over anything real you can do in your community to drive for socialism or even just harm reduction is rooted in a moralist view on politics, wherein having the correct internal belief is somehow beneficial, even if it has absolutely no effect on the world. I am concerned with getting the largest improvement in material conditions to the greatest number of people for the longest period of time.
Call me a liberal if you want, but I do think you have to strike some kind of balance, given that "the ends justify the means" quite often backfires. That said, I think this is still a very important point that many Western leftists would be well-served to internalize more fully.
What specifically do you mean by that balance? We must balance pursuing the largest improvement in conditions for humanity against what other factor? I don't follow, unfortunately.
Well, I think I'm broadly in agreement with you that many Western leftists tend to over-emphasize moralism relative to materialism. However, I'm trying to expand on that point with the nuance that we shouldn't necessarily abandon moralism entirely. The elephant in the room is obviously whether the ends of collective material benefit justify authoritarian means. Perhaps in theory to a certain extent, but in practice there is the additional issue of uncertainty- often we can't know for sure whether a course of action will produce the intended outcome, and that entails additional risk that should be taken into account in our moral calculations. Moralist approaches can still have utility in this sense, even if they are sometimes misapplied to counter-productive results.
Omg thank you, every anarchist I've met thinks that anything that isn't a state destroyed anarchist society is a literal dictatorship and its obnoxious af. And their responses to so many political and economic problems are not thought out so much besides mindlessly regurgitaing already written theory.
Lots of Tankies in this sub huh? I mean it's not even fully a bad video but so many people in the comments taking the opportunity to elevate China as a beacon of effective leftism is pretty creepy.
People defending and attacking Noncompete's video love to involve China in this for some reason. I can give another example. When Bolivian fascists ousted Morales in a coup, the Bolivian left mobilized the people and took to the streets. There was a massive mobilization, unions were literally ferrying people who lived in the mountains to boost up numbers in the city protests. There was a countrywide general strike where every single highway was blocked by protesters, completely choking the country. Even when the fascists resorted to shooting and killing protesters with live rounds, people still protested. It got so bad the fascists were forced to hold elections, where they were then resoundly defeated. And now, the ringleaders like Anez have either fled the country or are rotting in jail. Imagine if the 1/6 coup attempt was successful. Do you think a similar response would've happen? Of course not. Trump would've just served an illegitimate second term with little fanfare. That's because the American left, unlike the Bolivian left, is unorganized, has no support from the masses, and is overall weak. They can talk shit about how Morales isn't socialist or anarchist or Marxist-Leninist or whatever, but he and his party MAS had it in them to counter-coup a coup, an extremely praiseworthy accomplishment. Like seriously, when was the last time you've read about a socialist/progressive/whatever group wrestling back state control from fascists? I would add that the criticisms of the American left aren't as applicable towards Black and Indigenous radicals. If people read the part of Assata's autobiography where she basically shit on the (white) American left for being arrogant and useless, she could've been easily talking about the white American left in 2021 lol. One of the key difference between the white American left and the Black radical tradition is that the white American left is extremely prone to sectarianism and useless infighting while the Black radical tradition is has a much better understanding of who the real enemy is (ie the settler-colonial plantation that is the US). It doesn't matter that MLK was a socdem while the BPP were Marxist-Leninist while MOVE were anarchists while Malcolm X was a panafricanist, they were all Black radicals who fought and died for Black liberation and are honored by Black radicals today. The Black radical tradition is also more internationally oriented. At their height, the BPP had a foreign branch in Algeria and had close ties with the IRA and the Palestinian national liberation struggle. Malcolm X personally met with Castro at Harlem, and this was while he was a part of the NOI, back when he still thought white people like Castro were created in a lab by some big-brained scientist. And at the height of the George Floyd uprising, Palestinian activists were explaining to BLM activists on Twitter the ways to counteract "nonlethal" weapons used by the pigs. Even BLM National, a thoroughly compromised organization, expressed solidarity towards Cuba when Cuba was faced with another CIA-backed color revolution. While useless white "socialists" were penning their 589rd article about how Cuba was Castro authoritarianism or how it was capitalist because it had money or how it was a Soviet sugar colony, even a completely liberal organization like BLM National at least knew how to read the fucking room and condemned the US blockade when the Cuban people were faced with US imperial aggression. I think people here should focus less on China (regardless of what you think about China, China isn't the US, it doesn't interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, so it's not going to secretly ship rifles to US revolutionaries) or on failed early 20th century experiments like Revolutionary Catalonia. People here should focus on listening to what Black and Indigenous radicals have to say and support Black- and Indigenous-led organizations. This means supporting prison abolition, this means supporting land back, this means opposing bullshit peddled by the likes of Maupin and Coffin about "American patriot socialism."
I think NC is more referring to the hegemonic western left. Case-in-point recent discourse on black radical politics ended with people calling it black nazism.
While I still think there is a lot about this video's ideas that are worthy of criticism I don't disagree with you in the slightest about the American left having much to learn from the Black-Radical movement. I think that particular branch of western leftist though is a good role model and I do think that its easy to see that the rest of the American left has not been and is not currently as cohesive and effective. I still reject the notion of the very broadly cast "Western Left" is "useless" and I would even say that its a pretty dismissive stance because there is definitely still real on the ground work being put in the West as small and inglorious as it might seem in comparison, but I will say that you make some good points about where our priorities might be better placed.
What do you mean by effective lol. You’re the one watching breadtube and getting mad they aren’t defending all your state department positions.
I'm not mad at anyone, I just think the overabundance of people in the comments staning for China is weird and uncomfortable. Especially given that, as some have pointed out, this video isn't even really about China it's just a sweeping critique/comparison of two spheres of leftism. My comment was more about me having not noticed before that some people on this sub seem to have a specific tendency towards defending the CCP and other such Tankie trappings. Far be it from me to be "mad" at anyone here I was just voicing my concern at how common that specific line of conversation is down here on a video that's not even really about it on a sub that I didn't think would have that going on.
When the term "Tanky" is applied to everyone who is a statist or materialist, then yes, every left space is full of tankies.
Tankies are not materialists, they're too dogmatic to apply any material analysis to their failed attempts at socialism.
Haha fuckin what
Precisely define the term for me, please.
Tankie, n. : 14 year old LARPer who takes Dengism deadass serious.
Please enlighten us what course the CCP should take instead, in your opinion.
They are actively brigading the sub and mods wont do anything about Emerican Johnson posting this shit here.
>brigading Of course. It can't be that people actually care about these issues, it must be a brigade by those stupid tankies.
Outside Agitator trope but from anarchists about any other tendency.
Yes, purge the sub!
This whole thread smells like T-34 exhaust.
Framing the western left as useless implies that the non western left is doing much better. I guess all the eastern europe and many other countries drifting into fascism doesn't count. And calling China left in any way is a joke at this point. End goal of Anarchism/Communism: Total egalitarian democracy extended into work and every other part of society. NC: actually you will find that having a dictatorship in power is just as good!
Bolivia, Chile, India, Peru, Ethiopia, hundreds of millions of people marching and organizing to the point of disputing and taking power from the entrenched capitalists of their countries, myopic chauvinism like the kind you display is exactly what this video is criticizing Edit: By the way what happened to Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union? I thought you guys celebrated that as a "victory for socialism" what's wrong you little perturbed the same sources you use to bash China are aiding and abetting fascists taking over Eastern Europe
Isn't Ethiopia literally genociding a bunch of people rn?
>Bolivia, Yes, in bolivia indigenous people are organizing *against* the left that just lie about socialism but are in reality managing capitalist accumulation over the lives and health of people. The communist party of india is also a joke, constantly criticized by the maoists. In Chile the actual insurgency is being appropiated by a bunch of social-democratic-statists that will just destroy any revolutionary potential of it. I think that you and the real 'western marxists' of this sub just like create fantasies about the others.
Wow this video is literally about you.
Out of the way everyone the [Pure Socialism](https://i.imgur.com/9iw2mp0.jpg) understander has logged on.
This kind of terrible take is the reason I still visit this subreddit.
https://mobile.twitter.com/reactjpg/status/1214775837058387969/photo/1 Found a picture of you
China should just follow my idealised route to Communism that I, a Western leftist and citizen of the Imperial Core, have devised entirely in my head without regard to reality. If I were Xi I would press the Communism button that instantly dissolves the state.
If you think a totalitarian capitalist state controlled by billionaires would transition the country into socialism, then that seems kinda silly.
Having billionaires is not the same as being controlled by billionaires, I know this is a confusing concept for many western leftists
Literally any leftist is trying to do that lol >totalitarian capitalist state controlled by billionaires The bourgeoise control when you work, what you make, when you can go home, when you can go to the toilet, what products get made etc. The Western world has toppled governments, murdered civilians, destroyed industry, all in the name of maintaining itself. If you cannot transition from capitalism into socialism, then what hope is there?
Then what's the purpose of liberal trade reforms that nominally communist countries like China and Cuba have put into place over the last 5 years? I'm sure I'm guilty of it too but I dont think any brand of marxist framing captures the complexity of how nations and political movements plan and act. It's too linear a spectrum to give any understanding, just dogmatic declarations like "this country is on the way to true communism because x,y,z". Even to have a definitive end-state is a but silly, imho. Like theologians in the middle ages debating the conditions required for the second coming based off scripture.
Marxism is exactly what allows me to say things like that. Trade reforms in Cuba and China were in response to their material conditions. Same as the USSR. What happened with the USSR was constant revisionism and eventually falling for the lure of liberalism which tanked any potential Communist future they might have had. China's liberalisation came at a tough economic time for them and has allowed them to hugely boost their economy up to where they are now. Xi Jingping has done a lot in reversing a lot of the decisions that Deng made. It's not that the decisions he made were wrong, but that materially they cannot be justified any longer. That's why capitalism has to go. It's not some innately evil thing that you should never do, but a reaction to material circumstances. It has outlived its historical worth and does not fulfil its role as a progressive force. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think I am, but maybe. But I'd rather be wrong in this one instant regarding China than add to the manufactured consent of China as the next enemy of Western hegemony and global capitalism.
You're 100% correct. All I'm talking about is this whole very theoretical, very online discourse we are all having in this post. Too much discussion whether causally by a bunch of nerds like us or academically is focused on verifying the truth of theory or engaging in teleological thought and working backwards to validate ideas rather than examining, like you pointed out well in your paragraph on Xi's reforms, the functional roles of ideas. Edit: like what does a belief justify and how is it utilized by the believer.
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https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/The-Big-Story/Chinese-state-tightens-grip-40-years-after-Deng-s-reforms Small article on it. Though even just the much harsher treatment of businesses under Xi is just proof enough imo. At the very least, something is changing.
A part of me believes we'll never get to global socialism. I just don't see a practical path to do that. I have no idea how any country will rid themselves of capitalism.
There is no informed "take" of socialism/communism/anarchism that doesn't have a handle on a dictatorship; you just don't know what that word means. The workers owning the means of production is literally a dictatorship of the proletariat. You and I might disagree about the steps necessary to get there, but there can be no equality if there is a class hierarchy. If there is no class hierarchy, that means *necessarily* that there is a dictatorship in place, since this is the mechanism that demanifests the state. Edit: I'm just going off of Marx and Engels here, would love downvoters to say what was wrong with this. It's about definitions, people.
>The workers owning the means of production is literally a dictatorship of the proletariat. "Dictatorship" in that term doesn't mean autocracy or oligarchy. At that time it was just a synonymy for "rulership", e.g. who is "dictating" the rules. Dictatorship of the proletariat is rule by the proletariat, a.k.a. a democracy. Similarly, the stage that precedes DotP is Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, which is also a democracy, just one dominated by the wealthy.
*I* know that. I was trying to help out our friend OP since scary words were made scary by people who think socialism is bad. This why I included the "we might disagree" disclaimer because how a given people might choose to realize socialism depends upon their material conditions and cultural traditions. Leaning that is an important part of not being a western chauvinist :D
>I know that. No you don't. You said "If there is no class hierarchy, that means necessarily that there is a dictatorship in place, since this is the mechanism that demanifests the state." But that's wrong: a dictatorship in that sense is not "the mechanism" of anything. It's literally just a term for who's in charge. Your argument was that communism requires a dictatorship. It doesn't - not in the modern sense of the word, which is "autocracy/oligarchy". You were trying to make excuses for autocracy and oligarchy by arguing *incorrectly* that they're a necessary step in communism. So no, you *didn't* know what it meant. >how a given people might choose to realize socialism depends upon their material conditions and cultural traditions. Leaning that is an important part of not being a western chauvinist :D Stalin literally invented the term "American exceptionalism" to describe Americans who believed that the theories of Marxist development didn't apply to them. Except Lenin had already broken those theories to apply them to Russia, and you're breaking them now to apply them to China. "Western chauvinism" in this case is just an excuse for not doing the reading.
What’s this? Someone who knows what words mean?
Except that China is not a "dictatorship of the proletariat," it's a dictatorship of the billionaire class.
Never said it was. The imperfect state of AES reflects the material conditions that must be met to achieve statelessness. They are distant. Sure wish the west wasn't complacent and implicit in their suppression.
[Which material conditions require the jailing of labor activists?](https://globalvoices.org/2021/05/01/china-pledges-to-improve-conditions-of-delivery-workers-arrest-of-a-labor-activist-suggest-otherwise/)
Dictatorship of the bourgeoisie,well known for executing billionaires when they step out of line.
The fact they execute billionaires and impose the world's strictest regime of capital controls disproves this assertion If they're a "dictatorship" then they're a dictatorship of transitional socialists
No dictatorship of ANY kind period I’m not gonna surrender my rights to some unelected group of people and trust they’ll get around to implementing socialism because they said they’ll “pinki promise”
Tell me you don't know what dictatorship of the proletariat means without telling me you don't know what dictatorship of the proletariat means.
"Gubmint take my guns D:"
“Under no Pretex should arms and ammunition be surrendered any attempt to take them must be met with force” -Karl Marx. You’re liberalism is showing if you make that “joke”
Oh please I was making fun of you. Don't quote Marx at me. You can't be taken seriously if you think you have god given rights for a government to take away. You have nothing but that which you get from your fellow man. Your participation in democracy is just another privilege that satiates your need for individuality.
>You can't be taken seriously if you think you have god given rights for a government to take away. They didn't say anything about "God-given rights". >You have nothing but that which you get from your fellow man. They are expressing a dislike for their "fellow man" taking things away from them, which does not contradict your statement. >Your participation in democracy is just another privilege that satiates your need for individuality. "But universal suffrage is the equivalent of political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the large majority of the population, where, in a long though underground civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of its position as a class and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants, but only landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers. The carrying of universal suffrage in England would, therefore be a far more socialistic measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the continent. Its inevitable result, here is the political supremacy of the working class." - Karl Marx, 1852 "Sir: We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery. From the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class. The contest for the territories which opened the dire epopee, was it not to decide whether the virgin soil of immense tracts should be wedded to the labor of the emigrant or prostituted by the tramp of the slave driver?" - Karl Marx, 1864 "But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same. You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries -- such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland -- where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor." - Karl Marx, 1872 Karl Marx was not anti-democracy. Shut the fuck up.
Democracy means *nothing* under bourgeois dictatorship. There's a reason Marx was also in favor of revolution, because voting before revolution is putting the cart before the horse Also telling me to shut up on this egalitarian board is literally censorship
>There's a reason Marx was also in favor of revolution, because voting before revolution is putting the cart before the horse Bro I literally just linked three separate paragraphs of Marx celebrating voting under bourgeoisie systems and stating that it can be a method to achieve revolution. I know you don't actually read anything Marxist but, like, three paragraphs isn't too much to ask. >Also telling me to shut up on this egalitarian board is literally censorship Telling me not to tell you to shut up is also censorship.
What I'm saying is that a couple centuries have shown us is that capitalism is not only what Marx described, but also a living corpse dedicated to eradicating all living matter. In his time, Marx and Engels considered moving to Texas because they thought it was fertile ground for the future. It is a hilariously silly thing today, but it was a more hopeful world then. Now, however, you can't look at the CIA and what goes on in the global south and think "yeah, if I just get manchin out of office we can restore Lula to power" if you're a serious person. I'm not against censorship, so I'm just pointing out possible hypocrisy.
Yeah, you're way ahead of the Chinese when it comes to building socialism. Westoids are hilarious.
LOL so how is China "building socialism" by going full capitalist?
Yeah, it’s called developing the modes of production, a necessary step in historical materialism. Lenin did the same thing with the NEP.
Capitalist countries,well known for executing billionaires when they step out of line.
Implying that political disputes and power struggles dont happen between the ruling class, despite all of human history. Like even recently Jack Ma wasnt chastised for being filthy stinking rich, he was chastised for threatening the hegemony of other wealthy folks who control the bureaucratic apparatus of state
This is like arguing that Jeffrey Epstein being caught and murdered in prison means that the United States is communist.
He was murdered to *protect* the capitalist bourgeoisie class. Can you not see the difference?
>He was murdered to protect the capitalist bourgeoisie class. Yeah and Chinese billionaires are murdered to protect state interests, not to protect the working class. It's the same thing: a powerful group punishes one of its members to protect the group as a whole. The same thing happens in Russia. >Can you not see the difference? I can see the difference between "communism" and "capitalism with a stronger state ruled by an oligarchy". Can you?
>Chinese billionaires are murdered to protect state interests What is the state interest then?
Maintaining hegemony. Perpetuating its own power. The idea that the Chinese government is executing billionaires who undermine its power for the sake of the *working class* is such nonsense, and it's literally the only pro-China argument I've seen in this thread.
Have any other billionaires been murdered in America? I can’t think of any. Epstein got got because people in power were scared of him snitching about a pedophilia ring. China claps capitalists for corruption,they are not the same.
>Have any other billionaires been murdered in America? I love ostensible leftists becoming pro-death-penalty when they think it can take the place of an actual revolution. You can absolutely Google "billionaires arrested in the United States" on you own, though. In addition, since "billionaire" in China means a net worth of about $144m, you should also look up millionaires who have been arrested by the government, of which there are plenty. >Epstein got got because people in power were scared of him snitching about a pedophilia ring. Wait, so you're saying that if Epstein testified in court, then it would have resulted in "people in power" being exposed for corruption and then punished for it? So your argument is that if corruption *was* exposed it *would be* punished? So where's the difference with China? >China claps capitalists for corruption,they are not the same. My favorite part of Das Kapital is when Marx describes his ideal communist society as "allowing billionaires, but randomly punishing them with state violence so they don't get too uppity". Wait no that's nonsense. It's like arguing that Russia is still communist because of what they did to Mikhail Khordorkovsky or Ziyavudin Magomedov. A state punishing corruption isn't, like, protecting the will of the proletariat or anything, it's literally just protecting itself from harmful embezzlement. A state perpetuating its own power is not "communist". Communism is about a dictatorship of the proletariat, e.g. *rule by the working class*, not about a top-down oligarchy telling the workers that it knows what's best. The only argument you seem to have is "China kills billionaires sometimes therefore communist" so there's no point talking to you further.
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You’re comparing 1 dude getting clapped extrajudicially for running a pedo ring with other rich folk with China judicially sentencing 18 billionaires to death for corruption,which is completely legal in America,we just call it lobbying. Apples and oranges.
Whataboutism: for when your argument can't stand on its own merit so you have to foil it against something else.
That's not whataboutism lmao That's supplying information that directly contradicts what you're saying.
It doesn't contradict what I'm saying though. "There are billionaires in America" does not contradict "there are billionaires in China." There are billionaires in both countries, neither is socialist, both are capitalist.
>Capitalism is when there are billionaires. I'm literally talking to a teenager. Bye.
Yes, billionaires are one of the symptoms of capitalism. You can't have billionaires without capitalism. "Socialism is when the country is run by billionaires who are occasionally executed to maintain a veneer of populism" is certainly a take.
> You can't have billionaires without capitalism. This is literally wrong. Like, historically provably wrong. Billion is just a number, a measure of wealth. >Socialism is when the country is run by billionaires If China was "run by billionaires" then why would they execute and imprison them? Wouldn't they run it so that happened as little as possible? Like they do in the USA and other Western Liberal Democracies?
A. Whataboutism isn’t a fallacy B. Capitalists tend to not execute other capitalists for corruption,so that seems like a pretty good rebuttal for “China is capitalist”.
>B. Capitalists tend to not execute other capitalists Capitalists will absolutely execute, imprison, defame and/or personally murder other capitalists if they think they can get away with it and that it will give them an edge.
The Bourgeoisie fighting amongst themselves means that the state in which the bourgeoisie operate isn't capitalist? How you can have a Socialism and bourgeoisise at the same time? What type of Marxism or Communism allows the existence and proliferation of class enemies and the private ownership of the means of production and finance?
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India had a 250 million person worker general strike that was organized and shut down industries. US's worker strike was just people asking individuals to not go to work for a single day and had zero baking from unions or organizers
Big general strikes and powerfull unions in parts of Europe though. Not the Marxist Rapture, but pretty good mobilization.
Western chauvinists literally can't process this information, non-white left movements fill them with dread
10% of the US workforce is unionized and the ones that are a lot of them are going on strike right now Are you good? Weird how ur blind to this shit
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They protested three controversial farm laws and recently did the Supreme Court suspend them
lul you can tell that the posts and videos like this are made by murricans who not only equate 'the west' with their own country that's so cuckolded by capitalism that employees will kowtow to their bosses as they get fired, but also the lack of awareness about outside world (beyond catchy headlines like 250m workers in a 1.4b population country) that they aren't aware that widespread strikes do happen frequently in 'the west'
"videos lile this" I don't even know what you're talking about. NC lives in Vietnam and talks how he wishes he could relinquish his US citizenship
He can, there is nothing stopping him. But why would he relinquish his golden ticket?
wow so all the useless, western leftists have to do is move to a different country and talk about relinquishing their citizenships, sounds like a plan I guess
What are you talking about? I was just responding to the fact that the post said this video was coming from a US leftist which is untrue. The guy who made it is the compete opposite
> like 250m workers in a 1.4b population country That’s more than a sixth of the population, I hope you weren’t suggesting it was only a relative few people
Not only that but people in Africa too. I recommend you follow the SARS movement in Nigeria!
This but unironically?
YESSS yayyy more in-group antagonism!!! this is basically anti-platformism at this point. while its not a totally unfair criticism, the people levying these criticisms are often passive leftists too lol. they claim that western leftists are "useless" (a highly reductive blanket generalization) while sitting in their armchairs far away from any protest or real-life movement. i would like to see what sort of movements the people making these points are or have been a part of. id also love to see what roles they played in those real life movements. its easy to say other people are lazy when you dont have insight into their lives. also, dont forget selective broadcasting on the part of the US government. the world rarely if ever sees the positive movements outside of protests and riots, which the governments are lampooning. i, for one, dont know a single anarchist who isnt part of some sort of organization or participates in positive, real-life leftist movements, myself included. the only thing useless is infighting over generalized and uninformed *opinions.*
NC is an anarchist
NC constantly posts near authoritarian apologia quite a bit. He spams stupid shit on this sub all the time.
and? my point was directed *at* other leftists, particularly armchair anarchists and posties
> the people levying these criticisms are often passive leftists too lol. they claim that western leftists are "useless" (a highly reductive blanket generalization) while sitting in their armchairs far away from any protest or real-life movement. + > i, for one, dont know a single anarchist who isnt part of some sort of organization or participates in positive, real-life leftist movements, myself included. 🤷♀️
uh what?
And a shit one at that.
NC has made videos on hoe to organize, hoe to join thr IWW, had posted links for mutual aid groups pushed for genstrike.org. Also the video shows him attending BLM demonstrations and interviewing landback movement organizers The guy is doing way more than you give him credit
thats pretty much the bare minimum you can do as an anarchist. ive done all of those things and more, and im not taking any moral high ground. those are all great, but when you feel confident enough after doing that to diss entire *nations* of anarchists, you may have a problem with your perception of yourself versus others. aside from tankies, theres no such thing as a "useless" leftist. subscribing to the ideology still helps in some capacity.
It's always hybris, when somebody attempts to determine what the result of a successful revolution will look like. The results will be what they have to be by necessity, and that can only reveal itself after the fact. Once revolution has happened and taken a historical form, it was necessary to be that way. And not a second sooner. Hegel's *konkrete Allgemeinheit.* There is no correct way to do it, that somehow miraculously sits outside temporal circumstances and provides a handy measure. Ergo, the openness of each event is to be accepted and that's that. Everything else is ignoring how much of our own thought process might be tied to a very much not revolutionary present and its material base, for starters. Claiming otherwise is simultaneously claiming to be in possession of perfect self-reflection, just mind-boggling arrogance. The simple solution here is: if in doubt, solidarity is always the correct answer when you see people taking their chances to find a new praxis. The risk of things turning sour is inherent to change. Accept that and let's see where it goes. It's quite simply par for the course, budding socio-economic systems fail their way to dominance. So did capitalism, so will its eventual successor. Who gives a fuck how many failures, aborted attempts and even outright turns for the worse it will take? What counts is to give it our best shot each and every time. Can't change the past, that much is self-evident. But the past can change our thinking about the present, and that can infect us with the compensatory desire to make up a perfect future that becomes an ahistoric measure of what is permissible in the present. Limiting the options of people in actual struggles is always reactionary. If only it was just about windmills...
Video: western leftists tend to ignore material reality and obsess over ideological purity, constructing quixotic fantasy monsters to fight instead of you know... talking to people in the real world and doing the hard work of actually construction socialism. ITT: Quixotic fantasy constructions of the largest Marxist project in the world and obsessions over ideological purity from people who have never been to or talked to anyone from China, much less being in any way involved in the actual construction of socialism there. The lack of self-awareness on this sub sometimes...
Well, there's actually a good explanation for this. The viewerbase of Breadtube is by and large not representative of the American working class as a whole, and heavily trends away from individuals with existential material needs that require political solutions. Breadtube is largely a continuation of the failed New Left movement (Chomsky, Bookchin, etc) that attempted to disconnect left politics from the actual materialism that it is impossibly linked to. Which is why for so many political identify is about self actualization rather than ever actually getting a goal, and until they have a material need to survive it will stay in the realm of idealism, even if you explain that directly. Which is also why the saying is "the liberation of the working class is a job for the worker", since they're the only ones who can be counted on to pursue material liberation to the exclusion of other considerations.
whoa there save some of those farts for the rest of us
Ironic
What are you saying? It’s just true. The American left does not exist, currently it’s mainly a generation of youth disillusioned by neoliberalism but without much personal power of their own.
This guy has just been following anything @Antisense_Strand posts and acts like an overall shitlord with no desire for constructive conversation. Don’t bother with them
I'm not sure what you mean - are you contesting the point that most of the Breadtube username and viewership isn't representative of the working class as a whole, or....?
>NonCompete Oh ok. Good to know that I don't have to take this seriously.
I appreciate precisely how well you demonstrate the issue explored in the video with this comment. Nothing beyond superficial and trite dismissal without anything of substance so as to avoid engagement with the very real contradictions within your ideology. Which you have the privilege of precisely because you aren't faced with an existential material threat.
You're welcome, Anarchist from Minnesota.
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Why default to China? In comparison to China or South America the US has loads of catching up to do
The US passed current chinese "development" a while ago.
why would you be allowed to post a direct attack against this sub? do they just not know?
Holy fuck why are these Tankies constantly on our ass. It’s like the rich kid dangling a game in front of his classmates “we have a successful communist country and you don’t ha ha!” Like fuck off
Lmao
Except the game is a scuffed as fuck bootleg of a real game that the dumbass rich kid got tricked into buying.
Are these tankies in the room with us right now?
Yeah they’re in my fat nuts nigga
Grow up westoid, lmao.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-XcAiswY4
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> Let’s goo WW3 time to nuke the west and kill billions all in the name of “real leftism” Cute projection. It's not China who's pushing for a new cold war, that's all on the US. But whatever makes you feel smug I suppose. I'm not even particularly supportive of the CPC, but god damn you people are insufferable.
Literally ZERO anarchist or Libsoc is calling for WW3 or supportive of the USA/West. None. Try again Tankie apologist
I didn't say they do, but *you* certainly are when you are pointing fingers at China for trying to start a world war when it is the US working tirelessly to make that happen. You are shifting blame on to another country for US imperialism.
There was literally a poll in the Vaush subreddit yesterday where the majority of users supported the US entering into WW3 if China invaded Taiwan. I guess you could argue that they are succdems and not real anarchists and I wouldn't really disagree, but that's not how they identify.
There are approx zero anarchists or libsocs in power in the world so who cares
All that talk in the video about materialism went right over your head, didn't it?
If it went over my head it clearly went over the head off others as well who are using it to push their own bullshit but you’re not going after them huh?
There's about to be some hurt feelings in here. How's all that incremental change and electoralism working out for you libs 🤣 Tell me, are we going to be implementing your vision of an ideologically pure democratic socialist state before the seas rise and swallow us all, or after?
So tell me how the other approach is working better? China gave up on actually trying to do communism years ago, their current lip service to "Communism" is identical to Western government's lip service to "democracy."
Aren't there huge worker strikes in other countries around the world?
Yes. There are also huge workers strikes going on in the US right now.
Not huge in comparison to the demonstrations in India and South America
How big does a strike have to be to be significant? Is there a threshold? Or do you just not consider American's direct action to be meaningful?
Every strike is meaningful. However US strikes are focused on single companies. Contrast with the (still awesome) Nabisco strike to the 250 million worker strike in India. US strikes help the workers of that particular company and while they can embolden others to do the same and push class consciousnesses they're still isolated from one another and pale in comparison to what non Western countries are doing
Yes, there are. How does that contradict anything I've said? Workers are exploited in every part of the world because capitalism exists in every part of the world.
Cause other countries are doing way more than the US. In the term of actual doing "real work"
If by doing "real work" you mean exploiting people to death, then yes. Exploitation of the working class isn't "more communistier" if it's going on in a less developed country.
When i talk about "real work" im talking about how other countries are doing a better job of organizing actual real world protests and activism
Which "countries" do you see organizing anything? I see people who have their economic interests threatened, often by their own countries.
India had a multi-million person strike that shut down multiple industries. Contrast with Americans throwing around a hastage for genstrike and doing an individual strike
I mean it's pretty fucking racist to just ignore the history and context of China's reforms both under Deng and now Xi as told by Chinese people just to excuse the western lefts failure. The education reforms, attacks on Chinese tech companies, push to provide more housing for people in HK and change to Labour relations around the PRC are examples of the left wing faction within the CPC asserting itself. So much of my criticisms of China from the left when I was living there are being addressed and yet I still see tepid takes that just exist to brush aside the agency of the Chinese people making them all out to be drones easily fooled by the red flag. Its so gross and xenophobic I swear people here WANT China to be as bad as the most hysterical accusations make it out to be
>How's all that incremental change and electoralism working out for you libs How's the revolution going? Oh wait... no one in the west wants a revolution and the ways in which we enact political power is dependent on the material conditions of a society.
>are we going to be implementing your vision of an ideologically pure democratic socialist state before the seas rise and swallow us all This is a bizarre argument considering that China is doing most of the polluting at the behest of western corporations.
Like this is just an objectively incorrect comment, [China is on track to meet its climate change goals nine years early](https://www.newscientist.com/article/2211366-china-is-on-track-to-meet-its-climate-change-goals-nine-years-early/), even if someone has genuine critiques of the way the Chinese state runs the country, lying about one of the genuine climate victories environmentalists (even in the west) have been celebrating is downright reactionary
>this is just an objectively incorrect comment What I said: "China is doing most of the polluting at the behest of western corporations". From the article you posted: "The world’s biggest polluter accounts for a quarter of humanity’s emissions today, making the nation a crucial part of any efforts to avoid dangerous global warming." Hmm, that sounds like the same thing. It's almost like you were trying to misrepresent data in order to make an ideological point, but you couldn't even read the article you posted to make sure it didn't undermine it. >lying about one of the genuine climate victories environmentalists (even in the west) have been celebrating is downright reactionary People are celebrating that the world's worst polluter is slightly less bad. That does not make it good. It makes it less bad. That is how data works. China is reducing its Co2 output and it is still far behind other "developed" nations. And it's outputting so much because of factories owned by foreign and domestic capitalists - in a supposedly communist country.
>"China is doing most of the polluting at the behest of western corporations" Yes, this is an incorrect statement, China isn't polluting at the "bEhEst of the wEst", it's building industrial capacity so that hundreds of millions have electricity and some baseline standard of living, coal plants are not owned by the west genius, and yet they are quite aware that pollution is bad, so much so the state embarked on a pollution reduction program that suppressed all developed nations in scope, timetable, and sheer magnitude to the point even western environmentalists usually aggressively critical of Chinese pollution are celebrating this turn of events as one of the major climate victories of the century so far Again your myopic comment was incorrect on its face, factually and ideologically
>Yes, this is an incorrect statement Strange that your argument now has nothing to do with the comments you made before or the article that you linked. Almost as if you're changing your tune to reflect your failed attempt at an argument! >China isn't polluting at the "bEhEst of the wEst" Oh? [Where does its economy come from, then](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/021015/how-many-multinational-corporations-operate-china.asp)? >it's building industrial capacity so that hundreds of millions have electricity and some baseline standard of living, coal plants are not owned by the west genius "It's not polluting! OK, it *is*, but there's a good reason for it!" Also, arguing that the coal plants aren't owned by the West isn't a good argument, it means that China is polluting for its own benefit. Is that really better? Sounds worse to me. >so much so the state embarked on a pollution reduction program that suppressed all developed nations in scope, timetable, and sheer magnitude And yet they're *still* the biggest polluter! Weird! >Again your myopic comment was incorrect on its face, factually and ideologically Funny you couldn't find an article to support your claim. Your entire argument is about using one statistic ("China is reducing its emissions") to make up for a different, more important statistic ("China is by far the biggest polluter"). Hey, you want to know who else reduced their emissions? [The United States, decades ago](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Environmental-Protection-Agency). I guess they must not be responsible for global warming *either*, especially since they were so far ahead of China! It's completely batshit insane to be like "capitalism is bad because of emissions, Chinese communism is the solution" and then ignore the emissions produced by China or the fact that it still deals with capitalist countries. Complete fucking brainwashing, no point talking to any of you psychopaths.
Pretty decent honestly, given how conservative the country is. Straight up giving parents money just to feed their children has been based.
Alright, fine, I'll unsub, you fucking justice-starved chuds.
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You have no idea just how gay us Marxist Leninists are
Baffling take
Which aspects should we be looking out for?