So they should give up their cause even though they live in third world countries ruthlessly exploited by the west because the west will kill them? That is not a failure of ideology, its US imperialism ensuring the markets stay friendly to them at the expense of the peoples self determinism.
Not at all what I'm getting at - they should learn from the failures of others to pragmatically bring their cause into being, so as to not repeat mistakes that just make any form of socialism unthinkable in a country for several decades, maybe more. A healthy application of realpolitik is always better than blind ideological purity for the sake of being right, because in many such cases of asymmetry in power, being right and being smart are mutually exclusive.
Fair enough but I think they have adapted to this idea ever since the white forces were internationally supported in the russian civil war, the problem is this adaptation has led to more authortarian policies like "unity in action" and "democratic centralism"
Basically the western powers have forced them to abandon many ideals which is what i was getting at with dictatorships
Which brings me to another tragic point: given as the means cannot be separated from the end that they are said to be used in service of, one's choice of means necessarily influences how one interprets the end itself, and slowly what started as a seemingly transitory state becomes a permanent, gradually worsening fixture in daily political life. This is what happens if one does compromise on ideas.
On the other hand, to not compromise enough on one's ideals can, and usually does, result in two things: One becomes fixated on a certain idealized vision of the world and how it should be, not taking into consideration both data that shows that some premises were faulty, and data that shows the reality the premises were based on has changed; and also by zealously sticking to some sort of ideological puritan standard, one weakens one's position in the global political arena, leaving one weaker in withstanding against outside interference and possible eventual destruction.
Given this dilemma, it becomes almost impossible to apply any theory that promises radical change, no matter how gradual the process of getting there or how peaceful the means. This is mainly what I am getting at in my hesitation on the applicability of such theories, even if one considers them to be valid (another thing I am skeptical about, as explained earlier in the thread).
I agree but the problem is reform is equally improbable when the state itself is run by capitalist interests
Improbable as it may be, I am not sure I find it equally improbable. It is important to note most revolutions and radical changes are applied only during power vacuums, and this state of things dictates both how the change will be executed and how the outsider top dog political and economic entities will respond to the change. I find myself strongly leaning towards the belief that the stability afforded by utilizing the state mechanisms already in place are the only thing capable of sparing such attempts in actualizing radical change from the fate seen everywhere else.
What this does not do is spare people from the susceptibility to good sounding rhetoric utilizing revolutionary (or merely reformist) fervor, for nothing stops a particular gifted speaker or team of speakers from hijacking ideologically minded movements in order to achieve their own visions, short-sighted as they might be. Given how prevalent outrage at the state of the world is in mobilizing people towards socialism in any of its forms, this is a thing one should always be wary of. Sometimes the words of an ideologue are not as strongly backed in reality as they seem at a quick glance.
Dude if your offering up the "Communism/Socialism 101" books as your argument for why this is the better alternative to capitalism, I don't have the heart to argue with you why that's just wrong.
Every piece of our biosphere is collapsing under global capitalism. An alternative system better than that isn't all too hard to conceptualize.
I’m not saying that though?
I juat dont think a good solution is being offered up yet. Call me crazy or stupid but I don’t see it yet. I still have too many questions that aren’t solved by communism or socialism 101.
I generally don't think folks are crazy or stupid for not seeing a good solution. An organized left, at least from my constrained American perspective, has only just recently started to see a resurgence, pushing against a global standard of neoliberal policies from the last couple decades. The penetration of their thoughts into online spaces has still largely been from a place of critique, but plenty of concrete policy proposals exist. Even historically in American anti-capitalist tradition many of their policy proposals see some initial resistance but years later is adopted into consensus policy by the rest of the electorate agitating for those policies. Usually the wins for those policies have ended up as co-opted victories for whichever government is in power at the time instead of being seen as coming from leftist spaces, and the cycle repeats itself.
A modern day example of radical policy proposals in the U.S. would be a certain vision of what a society would look like without "cops". Many of them look at the historical roots of policing and tie it together with the states attempts to serve capital through union busting efforts or enforcing slavery (existing today through mass incarceration). Their vision is for a system of law enforcement, just a law enforcement that's radically conceptualized and distanced from "policing" communities. The specific policies would be to close the loophole for slavery in the 13th amendment, end asset forfeiture, establish community oversight boards, bar ex-military equipment from being leased super cheap, fundamentally change/end cash bail, prohibit domestic abuse cops from access to firearms at the very least (studies find ~40% of cops are domestic abusers), decriminalize drugs, decriminalize sex work, restore voting rights to felons, end private prisons, end mandatory minimums, drastically change training, programs that do things like assist someone that has a broken tail light instead of ticketing them for it, bar those who've been fired for brutality from serving elsewhere, and many more proposals. Combined those all represent a complete shift in the way law enforcement is handled and usually come from originally from a leftist critique and subsequent synthesis of policy in the area.
On the previous page I outlined some examples of communities to potentially draw inspiration from and in particular the development of Modern Monetary Theory is one proposed economic framework. To my knowledge it's not alone in sets of leftist economic theory being worked on and added to with concrete policies to look towards.
Its like how fucking centrist liberals took credit for victories of the IWW and unions.
being an accelerationist isn't about pushing the world faster and faster but recognizing that technology is speeding up and will only get faster.
Accelerationists are people who want to accelerate the collapse of the economy or society to expedite what they see as inevitable and achieve their desired goal of revolution. At least thats been my experience with them in leftist circles online.
Basically yes. However, because this is the internet and everyone is lazy on the internet, most accelerationists manifest their beliefs by simply avoiding doing or supporting doing anything that would prevent their revolution fantasy from coming true. Essentially their argument is that a total and complete societal collapse is the only desirable occurrence, nothing else matters, and attempting to do anything that could prevent that collapse (IE fixing anything that's wrong with this world right now) is opposed.
accelerationism is more about progress, both technological and societal, being an unstoppable, accelerating force, but one with a conclusion. left and right accelerationism are about trying to manage which way things go, left accelerationists hoping the world after is a post-scarcity utopia and right wishing for total technological singularity. unconditional accelerationists believe any control is useless and to just let it happen. it isn't necessarily about collapse, although collapse is definitely seen as a reasonable way for things to go. it's more about pushing through the process to reach its conclusion.
I can't overstate how fucking stupid this is. There is no reason to assume that collapse will result in a better long run outcome and PLENTY of historical evidence of the opposite being true.
there is a difference between thinking a collapse is a good thing and thinking it is inevitable.
Societal collapse or revolution is honestly what I'm most scared of. Part of that fear probably comes from the fact that I'm a reasonably comfortable citizen in the current system, and therefor I have fostered a psychological reliance on that system, but being aware of that I also don't see how a new society formed from the ruins of the current one is likely to turn out better. Who will cease power in such a vaccuum? Historically it seems to be the most power hungry and the strongest, and those are not the right kind of people. I believe part of why this country (Sweden) has advanced to where it is now is because it has had the privelage of relative economic stability and the absence of war and similar crisis.
I do see how the system isn't perfect though, and it has to change, but I believe in gradual change through focus on issues at hand and not ideologically driven revolutionary action.
Maybe it sounds naive, but I believe that part of why the current systems we live in don't work is because the basic social nature of humans, community and charity are not central enough because while selfish people can thrive in a capitalist society, I sincerely believe that humans aren't selfish by nature, but that the environment which they grow up in make them selfish by suppressing their social instincts.
The problem is this current society only exists so that people like you and me can be comfortable at the expense of millions of third world workers.
Exactly, that's what I'm recognizing and that's why I want society to change, and I'd like to see a way to get there but I don't believe ideological zealousness will.
Capitalism is destroying the environment, 71% of emissions are from 100 companies alone. Millionaires will use their resources to survive the coming storm and they are content to pillage the earth for the next 20 years and then leave us to fend for ourselves. The only chance we have is at the very least social democracy, but ultimately capitalism cannot survive. It is a system of infinite expansion and exploitation on a finite planet that leads to imperialism, racism and poverty and could kill us all.
So our "Strong Society" we have now is not gonna stop it for us, Its either revolution, extreme regulation, or death. I am not seeing any of those happening.
Dont believe the news when they blame consumers for climate change, or fucking French President Macron when he taxes the people for their climate footprint and leaves companies untouched. It isnt ur fault, its the society you live in.
It is better to further capitalize on this interest by reading more on the subject, rather than making do with the feeling of having learned a lot from reading unsubstantiated (though good sounding) forum posts. Or if you don't, at least understand that all you got from this are the views of a bunch of people on this subject (which is fine!) and not anything concrete and strong on which to base further views.
I guess we should ignore how many billions have been raised out of absolute destitution and total poverty
Congrats you went from a life of poverty to a life of substistence wage slavery!!!!1!1!1
Yes.
That is a improvement.
This reddit post put it eloquently
people who say "capitalism lifts people out of poverty" are normally referring to the effects capitalism has on so called "developing countries", where capitalists move industries to in order to exploit those areas for cheap labor -- people are saying that these dangerous and miserable underpaid labor conditions are "people being lifted out of poverty". They are saying that, since the GDP goes up or the amount of wage paying jobs increases, that poverty is thus being decreased.
But they aren't looking at the pre-capitalist situation at all. These people who are now desperate enough to become underpaid labor, prior to capitalist norms being forced on them by colonial regimes and/or national governments complicit with world capitalism, these people had communal property norms that they relied on. They were not employed in a measurable way because they were able to sustain themselves by making use of the commons or on community projects based on communal resources -- and such subsistence and activity isn't legible to world capitalism and economists.
But then colonial regimes and/or complicit governments conquer and enclose those resources and privatize them, often in the name of "modernization" or even "progress", and the people formerly dependent on those resources are thus forced into destitution and poverty, and in their desperation they are turned into a cheap workforce for capitalists.
So, the GDP goes up, the amount of jobs goes up, but it does so by first manufacturing poverty and driving people into destitution and separating them from access to the resources they and their communities have long depended on. The legible economic activity increases, and thus capitalists can claim that their programs have "lifted people out of poverty", but the reality is that the communities they have taken control over have lost material richness, not to mention social richness.
Edit: And, by the way, this process is a huge factor in driving immigration into the U.S. and Europe. People who have had their communities and resources plundered by western capitalists are just following the resources they were depending on across the border to where that wealth has been extracted to.
So, can I ask
If all of humanity becomes an aggraian bound society by the wholesale destruction of capitalism, will that be worth it to you?
Who said we have to return to being agarian? All I am after is workplace democracy and mutual aid relationships. Whatever form that takes Im game. Labels are divisive and dumb.
I'm after those things as well, but I don't want them to come at the cost of human development.
Everything has a cost, and a downside. There's not really a way around that. Somethings aren't going to be ideal, and we should work on improving them but we still have to accept that things have a negative.
Some of what you're advocating, to me seems very jumbled and disconnected and as if there's a way of doing things that doesn't have downsides.
The reason I come off as vague is because I have only recently started educating myself politically. I know my values and I know I am anticapitalism because its fundementally flawed but I am still learning every day ans evaluating what else I believe in.
I do know that capitalism is not a necessary evil as you seem to put it, and that there are more ethical ways to industrialize a country. At least for now I support strong international labor laws and regulation.
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