I’m curious as to how many people here have aspirations of moving to a socialist country, and think that they can succeed. If so, which one would you move to?
Finally, do you think it would be more beneficial to the communist movement if communists in the west moved to already socialist countries?
Honestly no. Like comrade Stalin said we need to build socialism in our own countries. As much as I would love to live and work in Cuba, there is more work to be done at home. The proles here need a massive helping hand, we got whanau with two working parents being forced to live in cars or garages, me moving overseas ain’t really gonna help those folk
I have a lot of friends living in Vietnam, which is apparently great for us English speaking natives in terms of teaching opportunities.
I’ve considered it, but frankly speaking I’d rather work to build the socialist movement where I’m at.
If you want to say, where are you at?
UK.
Things are a mess here. It positively reeks of political opportunity in the medium term.
After brexit things could get torbulent very fast.
Yeah, not to mention our specifically awful response to the pandemic. It’s already an enormous farce.
I think I conversed with you once before few months back. How’s the situation like right now compared to then?
Where I’m at or where my friends are in Nam? They’re doing just fine at this point. I think they’re back to life as usual there, with a few extra restrictions on travel as a precaution.
Over here in the UK’s a totally different situation. The government has lurched reactively between haphazard, poorly planned and badly implemented lockdowns on the one hand and extremely bad schemes to try and keep the already tenuous economy afloat on the other, directly undermining the preceding lockdown measures. We’ve vacillated between these two positions since the beginning of the response to the crisis back in March; “We’re under lockdown, but you can still go outside to exercise. Schools are still open and a haphazard definition of “essential worker” is in place”. After a decade of stripping down the state under the austerity agenda they lack the capacity to even implement emergency lockdown measures if they tried, and people are aware of this. Lockdown measures have in effect amounted to a guideline, not an imperative.
This was made even more farcical when the first lockdown was lifted under the extreme economic pressure that arose from the government’s unwillingness to adequately cover business owners and workers during the lockdown period. Even as case numbers were only just beginning to lose pace under the half cocked lockdown situation the government were already undermining it with nonsensical schemes like Rishi Sunak’s “eat out to help out” measure, packing people back into restaurants and in doing so not only effectively eliminating the hard won gains of the previous sacrifice, but also broadcasting a dangerous ambiguity to the public; people began to see contradiction in the government approach, and many began to conclude that the pandemic wasn’t that big of a deal. The government itself weren’t bothered by this, it’s in fact given them ideological cover to cram people back into dangerous workplaces and in doing so stave off their own worst case scenario of economic losses and a crisis easily on par with the winter of discontent. It was only when an even greater horror, the prospect of the total breakdown of the national health service, reared it’s ugly and they finally relented. The image of our sick being turned away from hospitals to die in their homes or on the streets was too much even for this cruel and callous Tory government to spin, and would have been the crowning achievement on more than decade of mismanagement at the helm of the state.
And so on we go, back into another inadequately planned, ambiguous, bureaucratic lockdown. This time it comes in a geographically categorised system with 4 tiers; in areas tiered 1-3 there’s still a degree of freedom allowed, and people will continue to work as always. It’s only in those areas where the hospital service is already on the brink of breakdown that the harshest restrictions, tier 4, have been implemented. This has created even more ambiguity, an uneven situation where those in the toughest restricted areas see themselves as put out compared to lower tier areas where restrictions are comparatively light. With no effective coordination between the national and local governments and the media apparatus people have found themselves confused as to what tier their local area is, what the specific restrictions of each tier is etc… It’s sheer pandemonium.
That’s nice to know comrade but I was referring to the topic we had last time, which was on the aftermath of the left’s ousting from the Labour party. What’s the left been up to recently, especially considering the circumstances you laid out so brilliantly above?
Ahh sorry, I thought you were referring to the overall situation. No effective change in Labour except the purge has intensified. Labour has haemorrhaged it’s left wing membership in a controlled cull by the party rightists. CLPs (local labour groups basically) all over the country have found themselves gagged by party insiders, with anyone voicing disapproval over the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn or the current trajectory of the party being binned off. They’ve also marginalised their union support, and Keir Starmer has openly courted corporate donors in an effort to squeeze out the last of union influence over the party. No one’s biting however, as their political interests are already very well represented by the conservative party, who are in power with a strong majority. In essence, the rightist putsch has just enfeebled Labour, it has lost swathes of members with the enthusiasm to canvass come election time and now even alienated the unions, a major pillar of financial support. For all the right wing efforts to purge the leftists from the party, polling seems to indicate their share of the vote remains effectively unchanged, and they still trail the Tories.
OK I get that Labour is purging but what exactly is the left doing in response? New parties, new orgs, what?
My party, the worker’s party, has grown at a clip since it was founded last year. We have over 4000 members now and over 70 party branches. We’re scooping up quite a lot of former labourites, especially in the so called “red wall” in north England. I’m in the south, which is Tory country, but I’ve picked up some interest. George Galloway’s media profile has worked wonders to promote us, with things like MoaTs pulling in interest.
Is the party a DSA style big tent where the membership requirements are loose and people aren’t required to be communists? Is it closer to a socdem worker’s party like in many countries or is it going to be like the WPK?
No, I am actively working in the communist party in my own country (Spain).
I very much wish I could. But I am old, and do not think I have any good skills or reason any of the existing socialist countries would allow it.
I think it is useful, as a kind of brain drain in the atypical direction… capitalist countries are currently eating themselves and they don’t need workers in many fields… the rest they’re trying to kill off as fast as possible. I’m reminded of the escape in the novel Catch-22, where he realizes that his friend Clevinger kept crashing planes but surviving, and although everyone thought he was just a terrible pilot, in reality he was getting good at crashing planes in order to make a final escape from the military, and get out of the catch-22.
Socialist countries need skilled labor, and usually unskilled labor too, as long as you’re willing to move, and speak the language. Most people want to work, and had no problem in the past moving to countries that had employment… now is no different.
I’d like to move to China one day so I’m learning Mandarin. Just looking at life expectancy trends can give you a good indication of which countries you’ll have better luck in.
Cuba does have a need for certain jobs, they have a program for college graduates to train to become doctors in their overseas medical program. If things become more dangerous here in the US, I’m considering moving to China or Vietnam because the US is going to start a world war soon enough
You’re going to move to the very country the US wishes to start a war with? That’s like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
Every parking garage in China is a nuclear bunker, the Chinese navy is building new ships at an insane speed, and they can destroy moving ships with ICBMs. Meanwhile the US empire is already starting to deteriorate. Its clear which side has the advantage in a war here.
Yeah, but I’d rather avoid supporting the US war effort
How would staying in the US mean supporting the war effort? Because you pay taxes? If that’s the case you’re already supporting the US’ current wars and I doubt you’re lining up to go to Syria.
In a world war situation the entire economy would likely be reorganized in a war that directly supports the war effort in a different way that the indirect support via taxation does, at least as far as I figure
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If you really want to get out there I suppose you’ll have to turn on the charm and pull a Chinese national.
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I really want to
I thought about that, but I’m mainly worried about it being borderline colonialist, as in a westerner moving somewhere he doesn’t belong to live the dream.
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