I’m not saying violence is the solution, but [REDACTED]
“A lot of people say violence isn’t the answer. Violence is a question. The answer, is yes.”
There are many ways to solve the landlord problem. Mao found 300,000 ways
Get organized and read theory, comrades. I made an introductory reading list on Marxism, if anyone is interested but doesn’t know where to start. Also taking suggestions for improvement! Honestly, I’m looking for feedback more than anything right now, haha.
Might as well get in on the action here with an intro reading list on Anarchism then :p
Feel free! People can pick one or read both.
“Are you a communist, too?” the kangaroo asked.
“No, I’m an anarchist!”
“Great”, the kangaroo said, “then we can be friends — until after the revolution…”
To be fair, throughout history it has been common for the two general camps of Leftists, Marxists and Anarchists, to willingly join the other and convert. The biggest problem is that it isn’t a mere disagreement with means, but on ends as well.
Marxists seek full public ownership and central planning in a democratic world republic. This is “Stateless, Classless, and Moneyless” in the Marxist sense, but not the Anarchist.
Anarchists typically seek decentralized networks of mutual aid and cooperation, in a sort of spiderweb formation, a sort of “building the new out of the shell of the old.”
Left-Unity serves a vital role in aligning in similar interests and achieving broader goals, but at some point these conflicts in desire must be rectified in some manner.
I’m not arguing against Anarchism, I’d rather people read and decide for themselves what they believe is the best course.
You addressed this so neutrally that my bias took over and I assumed you were arguing in favor of anarchism lol
Lmao! For what it’s worth, I used to consider myself an Anarchist, so I’m familiar with common tenets like “Means-Ends Unity” enough to hopefully represent Anarchists faithfully.
My personal belief is that the more people that read theory of both the Marxist and Anarchist variety and actually put theory into practice, the more data points we can have, so to speak. Theory guides practice, which affirms or denies aspects of theory to allow modification of theory to be re-applied to new practice, in an endless spiral of repeated testing.
This is actually just straight up the Marxist conception of the Dialectical Theory of Knowledge. It’s sometimes dismissed as common sense, of course, but this sense isn’t so common. It’s extremely similar to the Scientific Method.
Yeah people, including myself, tend to forget that, before dialectics/etc were explicitly articulated in writing, such methodologies absolutely weren’t common sense. The concept of hypotheticals wasn’t even widely comprehended until the last couple centuries iirc
I wouldn’t call central planning “Marxist”, it’s just better for many things. And Marxism is about trying to find the best solutions scientifically to the issue of capitalism. Namely a revolution and a restructuring of society by the workers “in their image”. And practice of attempting that and building that new society brought new innovations and ideas.
Also, the end goal for Marxists, like for all communists, is and should be a “stateless, moneyless, classless society”. Not in any “words mean different things” way. In a “there is no more class divisions, no more commodity production and capital, and no more state or hierarchical authority. Like anarchists want as well.
I’m sorry, and I don’t mean to be rude, but what you said is wrong, and a common misconception among those who haven’t really delved into Marxist theory yet.
Central Planning isn’t Marxist by itself, but Marxists want Central Planning. This is because Marxists believe Capitalism necessarily creates the conditions for central planning by competitive markets coalescing into large monopolist syndicates that already have to plan themselves. This is Scientific Socialism, a prediction of the future based on what the current direction of society is heading towards, and harnessing that via worker revolution so that these large syndicates can be gradually folded under one banner and run by a democratic government.
For Anarchists and Marxists, the State is an entirely different concept.
For Anarchists, the state is representative of enforced hierarchy, a monopoly on violence. Thus, it must be horizontal, but there can be different classes like the Petite Bourgeoisie who own their own tools or Small Handicraftsmen. Most Anarchists want abolition of classes as well, and thus usually also advocate for communes and Mutual Aid Networks with shared ownership.
For Marxists, the state is a representation of class oppression. Once classes are abolished by the folding of all of industry into the public sector, and there are no class divisions, the state is abolished in the eyes of Marxists, whithered to what Engels calls “an administration of things.”
When ultimately it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself superfluous. As soon as there is no social class to be held in subjection any longer, as soon as class domination and the struggle for individual existence based on the anarchy of production existing up to now are eliminated together with the collisions and excesses arising from them, there is nothing more to repress, nothing necessitating a special repressive force, a state. The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away.
I recommend reading or re-reading Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, which is the source of that passage (and explains Scientific Socialism). Hierarchy is not a problem for Marxists necessarily, but it absolutely is for Anarchists. Marxists believe that communes can result in trade, resulting in differences in material conditions and thus accumulation, starting the entire process of Capitalism anew, this is why Marxists do not want what Anarchists want, just like Anarchists don’t want what they consider a state, but Marxists do not. For further reading on this critique of cooperatives from the Marxist perspective, see Engels’ Anti-Dühring.
Alternatively, for a short, 20 minute article going over the same concept I just outlined but in greater detail, Marxism vs Anarchism is a good middle ground between reading the aforementioned Engels books and just my comment alone. Your sentiment is a common one, but I have yet to see such sentiment backed up by quotations from Marx and Engels that go against what I have just laid out. Normally, people who share your sentiment stop purely at the phrase “stateless, classless, moneyless society” and cease to dig in more to how Marx and Engels used those terms in their broader writing.
I am not arguing against Anarchism here, many Anarchists have tried to tackle the problem Marxists raised a long time ago and thus there are good arguments from Anarchists on how to avoid this, but the crux of the matter is that the 2 camps want what I outlined for them and believe the other to be unsustainable or unjust.
Really, I’m just a theory-nerd for Marxism, which is why I made my reading list to begin with.
The only real monkey wrench when it comes to cooperating are the Leninists. Demsocs, leftcoms, anarchists, and even succdems are usually more than happy to work with each other and not stab each other in the back.
Until the revolution…
Left-SRs didn’t fight much with the Makhnovists.
Even the Mensheviks were pretty chill with the two abovementioned groups.
The sailors of Kronstadt even had all three among them.
The Bolsheviks shot all of them.
The anarchists of Spain got along quite well with the POUM (half-demsocs, half-Trots). The Stalinists shot them both.
Add links to different political party’s and internationals aligned with leftist values.
Any suggestions? Alternatively, you could add them as a suggestion on the post itself so they have further visibility. I have a US POV because that’s what I’m familiar with, and the driving reason for the creation of my list is helping dissaffected liberals radicalized by the results of the US election. If you have a non-US POV that would be appreciated!
Got a few but tbf it would be better to have an easy resource to link with definitions by country.
Awesome work with this resource though, I will link it into UK leftists if that’s okay?
Not a problem! I’ve been purposefully spreading it (though hopefully not in a “spammy” manner), so I encourage it! I just ask that, rather than copying and pasting, you link it so that all questions are held in one place.
That’s a good point on the “organization list” idea, I just don’t have the familiarity with orgs outside the US.
That’s the plan anyway as well as added to account bio ✊
Thank you!
To add on to the theory part. Don’t just read it, watch it too! There are a lot of YouTubers out there that do a good job covering it. Also, keep in mind if you’re reading older theory, there’s probably better versions of it out now. Stuff that has had more time to cook and is more applicable to what’s happening today.
There are indeed good YouTubers! If you check my list, it has a good mix across the board of older and newer theory and history, it is designed to build on itself as you read it.
Richard Wolff’s Understanding Marxism any good?
Wolff is considered a pretty big revisionist. If you’re intersted in learning about cooperarive focused economies, he’s supposedly pretty good, but his understanding of Socialism goes against Marxism, ie he considers cooperatives Socialist but not publicly owned and centrally planned entities, when Marxists would consider the opposite to be the case. For more information on cooperatives going against Marxism, Engels wrote Anti-Dühring.
Think of Wolff as a Market Socialist that gets a lot of inspiration from Marx, but isn’t a “Marxist.” I’m not going to say that makes him wrong, but obviously I disagree with him and his interpretation of Marxism. I gave my overall opinion of inclusion of his works (and Chomsky’s) here when another user recommended their works. The comment chain is useful IMO.
I recommend checking out the list I wrote, if only for section 1. Principles of Communism is very straightforward and easy to understand, and Blackshirts and Reds is a fantastic history book by Dr. Michael Parenti that helps de-mystify Communism and its mortal enemy, fascism.
Do you intentionally try to put people off by making any reader think they are joining the communist party by confiding in this post?
Can you elaborate? Is my half-joking usage of the word “comrade” what’s putting you off, or is it my suggestion to get organized, which is part of the claim of the post itself (unless you take it to mean shooting up a local Wal-Mart)?
How likely do you think it is that masses of people will become well-read marxists and start a violent revolt? Is it even within the realm of reality?
What area, specifically, are you referring to? It’s already happened in several countries, usually it doesn’t require everyone to be well-read but for those who are to help guide the ones who aren’t, and this trust is built by placing material benefits for the working masses at the forefront. The Black Panther Party tried to do this with children’s feeding programs, as an example.
If you’re asking about if I think it will happen in the US, my answer is that yes, it certainly can. Capitalism and by extension Imperialism are unsustainable as they naturally kill off competition and centralize. Where the course of this collapse is steered depends on the Workers themselves, hence the necessity for at least some of them to take theory seriously.
What does marx say about combating clusters of ai drones? Because to be clear, if we are going the violent route, it wont be a matter of storming the capital of a third-world country.
And wouldnt that require everyone being on the same ideological page? How bad would the state of the country need to be for people to coordinate on one idea when they are inundated with psychological warefare and disinformation? People dont want to educate themselves or be brave, especially at the advice of an anonymous social media comment on a fringe platform.
All that said, you want to dedicate yourself to fostering a violent marxist revolution instead of getting involved in local political reform yourself?
Idk, it just seems delusional (though for good moral reasons).
For the first question, on the how of revolution, we can look to historical, successful revolutions, and again, the inherent unsustainability of Capitalism. It isn’t a matter of if, but when, Capitalism crumbles. Additionally, as the contradictions within Capitalism sharpen, so too does the social consciousness of the international working class. Ideas come from material conditions, not the other way around. I spend sections 2 and 3 explaining both the formation of ideas and the transition to Socialism from a Materialist perspective, and showcasing the inherent unsustainability of Capitalism and Imperialism.
Secondly, if reform were possible, Marxists would be the first in line. I spend section 4 going over the futility of reform and the necessity of revolution.
I recommend at least taking a peak at the list I made, plus if you ask questions there they can all be answered in one place, which I selfishly prefer to save my own time.
I just cant believe a claim of inevitability from past history with the extraordinary circumstance of the information age.
I certainly agree that captialism is a process with a conclusion, when we are talking about organic growth and not some perpetual strategy to maintain the illusion.
But intelligence is an unprecedented disruptor in what could otherwise be a predictable repetition of history. What if we need a lot less people than before to thrive?
Who do we even kill? Could a revolution even develop without being recognized? In the past the power structure couldnt deal with so many people in its opposition. In the past the system needed the people who opposed it. Is that still true? I think the game has changed quite a bit.
Strategy from the ruling class is how they maintain power. What about strategy derived from super computer analytics (predicting the future) with more data input than ever by astronomical margins, and language models to digest it? When there are paths for ai to interact and influence these problems more directly by building it into infrastructure i wonder how deeply the people can be disrupted and how perfectly counter strategies to resistance will be instantly carried out.
If you are recruiting people to read text on inequality, and hope to have a lot of peoppe arming themselves for your cause, i suggest hurrying.
If you had a genie, you could at least get rich-seeking bullets
*nanobots
Nanobots are boring
Get rich seeking grim reapers, rich seeking dark seid laser eyes, a undo-all-billionaires-and-their-effects button
eat the rich
And compost the scraps
Finally someone who shares my violent phantasies
Phantasies lol. (This message was sent with love and not hate.)
Climate change isn’t the problem.
Climate change is the solution.
To us.
The Earth has suffered worse than us, even other runaway, destructive mistakes of evolution that didn’t play nice with Earth’s biomes. See the carboniferous period.
A couple million year fever is nothing to our mother’s 3.8 billion year story of life, it’s how she heals, how she repairs from catastrophic damage from both within and without.
Life will go on, life is hearty, life grows and changes at depths we can’t reach, in crevices we can’t find. Life will end here one day, but not because of us. Our bodies will have long since broken down into those subterranean petrochemicals we love so much long before then. We’re just a transient surface nuisance.
We’ll probably stubbornly cling to scattered pockets of existence using the remnant tech and hardened structures of old when the Earth becomes overtly hostile to our extremely fragile bodies, but that buys a few centuries of struggle at most, and that’s for the best given who we are and what we’ve done to the paradise we inherited and belligerently refused to foster, and instead burned with reckless abandon for individualstic greed and gluttony.
I totally get this. But.
It’s a tiny majority of people causing most of the damage. They have all the power, and they are doing all the damage. We can’t stop them because we don’t have any power.
Humanity isn’t the problem here. The tiny cabal of selfish, evil people who are ruining it for everyone else are the problem.
The difference is that one of them can be solved in the other can’t.
I think handing most humans the toxic power of effectively infinite capital is a highly effective corrupting influence. Most people who, whether by action or inheritance, have the power that comes with hundreds of millions of dollars plus begin to see themselves as Gods above ants. For every Dolly Parton that uses their wealth to buy babies books, there’s 100 wannabe masters of the universe that want to cut public funds to cut their own taxes to inflict their will on society, fully believing they’re making it fair because they’re willfully only considering their privileged position.
I don’t believe a class of people with billions of dollars in a sea of people who can only accumulate a few million through honest labor at most over their entire lives can lead to anything but this. There has to be a hard, enforced limit on how much power an individual can accumulate, but we’ve branded that “punishing success” and even the victims eat that lie up, as the truth is those people profited from the benefits of living in a society, and therefore should have responsibilities to it as the “winners,” but instead choose to declare themselves rugged individuals who did it all themselves out of ego.
Capital is power, power currupts, and currupting levels of power are not just tolerated, not just permitted, but celebrated here, with those that attain it deified, and those that don’t deluded into chasing it or being shamed for not doing so.
You can’t solve people having billions in exploited, society warping levels of capital being allowed to control that society, when the root cause and only solution would be to strip them of it and reshape the economy to tax all income above a level that risks capturing one’s own elected/appointed regulators.
Not without the necessary, but painful collapse and rebuild poor people will actively fight against despite it being the only way their kids might have a better life. It’s a paradox by design, a hostage situation with the gun pointed at the capitalist subsistence opiates, fast food, social media, literal opiates, etc, to keep the laborers laboring for fear of uncertainty.
How do you get people en masse to turn, as they need to, on the very concept/dream of being rich and sitting above society? People who’ve been propagandized their entire lives to see that as the highest and most socially encouraged of all pursuits?
Brilliantly stated!
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You ever find yourself agreeing with Agent Smith?
I’d like to share a revelation during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.
I’ve always fashioned myself a cynic, aka a disappointed idealist, but I always had a hope inside that humanity would look in the mirror and, with the advent of information on tap, reflect and evolve.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve come to realize that handing humanity infinite mirrors in the form of selfie cams just made humanity fall in love with its absolute worst impulses.
The Wachowzki siblings that wrote Smith indeed had humanity pegged dead to rights. And both of them are trans and therefore know the hatred in humanity’s hearts towards what we see as the other firsthand, which just adds to their credibility.
Oh and I highly recommend anyone watch the Second Renaissance, 2 shorts in the Animatrix that documents the fictional origins of the machine war, and IMHO it is a highly accurate condemnation of how humanity would act if a creation of ours demonstrated sapience and begged us for even the simplest of rights, like to be allowed to continue to exist. We all know what we’d do right? Given what we literally already do to other humans using something as trivial as skin tone, net worth, or declared imaginary friend as validation.
Related metalcore track:
Stop! Before It’s Too Late and We’ve Destroyed It All by Atreyu
He’s really gonna want a high-powered sniper rifle and a lot of practice. Getting up close is how whats-his-fuck only clipped an ear.
Hey, give the kid some credit. Ironsights with manual rangefinding on a slope with the knowledge that SS counter snipers are about to show him how a professional does it?
I’d like to see you do better.
I didn’t say I could, but knowing how somebody could have done better doesn’t need me to.
The climate movement has to get organized politically first and foremost. Guns are meaningless without a political program, its just fetishism. Not to mention dangerous. This is the most USA brained meme ever.
I don’t disagree, but I think that’s still the cart before the horse.
People in general need to stop tearing down people who are closest to them if any complex issue is to ever get solved imo. After the US election all you see is blame getting thrown around, and most of it (that I’ve seen) is blaming people closest in values for not approaching issues in the exact way the blamer wants them to.
Progressives seem like they will always struggle to make anything complex and meaningful happen when they tear each other down, meanwhile bigotry and regressiveness is pretty singular and easy for their opposition to mobilize.
I don’t think I’m tearing anybody down after the election.
I’m gonna go a different direction and say that people on the left have to learn to disagree productively. Rather than the old dem party “shut up get in line the adults are talking” progressives should be interested in grassroots mass campaigning. What is needed is a mass movement, and that won’t happen if people can’t make basic democratic decisions in a field of uncertainty and shifting priorities.
But if I see my fellow progressives going down a stupid path, like the one the meme seems to advocate for, I’m gonna say something. If my comrades want to arm themselves, great! If they want to organize into a worker militia, that’s 1000x better. But believing we can make change happen with violence divorced from politics is as naive as believing we can make change happen with politics divorced from violence. That’s not what the state is.
I am the last person tearing down anyone. I agree with your point and the urgency of it, but (theoretically) disagreement can be productive and drive discussion, rather than making people more campist and paranoid. Avoiding conflict will not unite the left, but those conflicts will never get resolved or worked through, and they end up staying forever. We need to work past it together rather than acting like we are all bitter enemies judging each other just because we have different priorities. That’s just normal regular politics
Well said, and I didn’t intend to say you are tearing down anyone.
The only relevancy to you is your statement about organizing I think is very important, but the blocker imo is that complex issues require working together in ambiguity and I’m seeing less evidence than ever that progressives who very much agree on what a problem is, and most of the solution to that problem, they then start squabbling rather than working together.
Yeah well I wish I had a clear answer to the problem you’re correctly identifying. Probably the best way to get around at least the first large chunk of issues, is focusing a lot on education. Quite frankly many liberal progressives, the good ones who would value more highly human emancipation and progress than clinging death-like to private property at the expense of all else, function largely based on enlightenment moralism such as a “categorical imperative”, as well as are hardwired for dualism rather than dialectical materialism (for example.) IMO these out of date paradigms are woefully insufficient for the present task.
But even among like-minded individuals there are big problems to move beyond. I’m in a group of political activists that go to great lengths to vet its members. It takes a minimum of 4 months of study and discussion to be even considered to join, and activists had often been studying for years before and continue to study once accepted. The group was formed by some organizers who have been working together for decades before splitting from their old group. We are a very democratically run org, that works to influence mass movements and call for the creation of a workers party by and for the workers, in order to establish a worker state to transition to socialism away from capital and private property.
Long story short we have vicious disagreements despite our collective work, our shared education and frequent comradely discussions. The scope of what we disagree about is narrower, but the disagreements are almost irreconcilable. Personally I think some people could be more introspective, others better communicators, others less dogmatic. Various differences manifest as two distinct factions in conflict, with the rest of the membership left to tip-toe around it, or set up in one camp or the other. And this is a very good group! None of these critiques venture into the sort of interpersonal cattyness, or downright abusive behavior from leaders of other groups. We don’t have those particular problems, but yet problems emerge nonetheless.
But moving into a more “repressive” period under trump might have the effect of unifying many peoples differences and burying different hatchets. Temporarily. Its a mistake to think that individual ideas or ideology is solely responsible for the difficulties of the left. We exist in a milieu that is hostile and confused, at least some of the hostility and confusion amongst us is part of that influence. Having an external “enemy” to struggle against has a way of unifying differences and replacing important priorities with urgent ones dictated by history. Also things can move very quickly once society reaches a tipping point. Objects in our predictable future may be close than they appear. I hope we can get our act together, and will keep working to try and make that real
I know that was a lot to write so I want to acknowledge I read it all, appreciate the effort.
The existence and interactions of your group of activists is fascinating, I admit I lean towards radical inclusivity so it sounds a bit wild to me, but I also get and respect how difficult it is to maintain group cultures and where exclusivity is necessary and productive.
I fully agree that there will likely be some unity under Trump out of necessity and that it will unfortunately probably be temporary (can’t help but think about Biden getting the most votes ever being strong evidence towards that)
Not much follow up except to say you seem like a good person, hope whatever influence you seek is supported.
I appreciate your remarks, and I am also a believer in radical inclusion, but not everyone is ready for political struggle. Hell, I’m pretty sure I’m not cut out for it either; except for my dedication to it. But hopefully more people can become ready and produce some new social form we never could have predicted fully, and it grows into something by and for the many. That’s why I try to educate whenever possible, and get involved in whatever work I’m cut out for. I guess this will be the test, the next 4 - however many years
In game ofc
While it wouldn’t solve climate change, it would certainly make it easier to play Minecraft without OP players.
poop
The genie forgot to turn the wisher into a raccoon
Where’s the Artillery & the Jets ? & body-armour
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Why on Earth do you think a leftist revolution requires exterminating workers in problematic industries? Your doomer nihilism isn’t founded on logic.
Because it makes it easier for those still comfortable enough in the status quo to dismiss revolutionary action, and keeps them safe and secure in the idea they’ve been indoctrinated with that “the system might not be perfect but it’s the best we’ve got”.
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So your argument is for some sort of eco-fascism, not Leftism, and you’re arguing against Leftists as though they are eco-fascists? This is nonsense.
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First of all, drop the condescending smug attitude, that’s incredibly rude.
Second of all, you are positing that a Leftist revolution would target that which it relies on for support. This doesn’t “add to discussion,” it misdirects it.
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Better an asshole then a coward
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Arguably a bullet in nearly any human is the most cost effective solution per ton of CO2.
Sure, I supposes in the same way a bullet is the most cost effective remedy for headaches. Just one round and they’ll never have one again.
Right, cost effective should not be construed to be good.
Yeah, it’s certainly not a downside, but there’s lots of context where when considered in a vacuum it can be misleading.
All I am hearing is we need numbers and to start soon.
