Marxists believe in dialectics. In essence, contridictions are inherent and change comes about as the contridictions are resolved.
As the contridictions are resolved, as has happened in past systems, we expect a widening of democracy and better conditions.
Will there be a point where all contridictions are resolved? We don’t know for certain, but the path toward that point improves peoples lives and liberates people from their current state of exploitation and oppression
The socialist project is not to just solve economic inequality and then call it a day. In fact, and once again because or ideology is based on dialectics, we understand that to work toward economic equality you must also work toward political equality. Working out these things is a process of “resolving the contridictions” within our class relationships. The aim of this is a classless society, which would mean all contridictions have been resolved and class struggle ends
The Revolution is not an event. It is an ongoing process. Its is not a singular event exactly like you say. We already believe that. “The witheting away of the state” is component of Marxist-Leninidt thought. The Revolution is the ongoing process where as i said earlier, we contnue to resolve the contridictions
The beginnings of capitalism may go back as far as the 1300s. The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger, which documents this new semi global mercantile system goes to 1533. There was encirclements that began shortly after until much of the land in europe had become private property.
The English capitalists had their revolution/civil war from 1640-1660, supplanting the power of the monarchy, the French and the american revolutions near the end of the 1700s. These were the big capitalist revolutions. They happened at the end of hundreds of years of development, struggle, change, etc.,
When we talk about socialist revolution we aren’t talking about a war, we are talking about the replacement of a whole system of social relations. There are wars fought, and uprisings and all sorts of historic struggle and conflict. But those aren’t the revolution we are referring to.
A socialist society widens democracy to accommodate for this.
The following is from a Marxist Leninist perspective - other socialist tendencies are available:
For MLs we want to maintain state power in order to defend against hostile capitalist states and internal counter revolutionaries. Lenin describes this as a state, but not a state. He views the state as smashed as power transfers from the bourgeois to the proletariat.
The class enemy being put down, state power no longer is used to oppress the proletariat. The democractic process can be used after this point to deal with the remaining/new contridictions that exist/arise.
The reason why liberal democracy cannot provide the same thing for the proletariat is because liberal democracy is designed for and controled by the bourgeois to enact their oppression upon the proletariat.
The revolution isn’t a singular event, but its also not a succession of violent conflicts. The class enemy being eradicated means true democratic process can exist
One of the biggest historical arguments on the left from all sides is against the idea of Utopianism. There are huge, obvious problems with capitalism that can be fixed, but they’re not the end of it. Where we go from there is almost anyone’s guess.
The immediate problem we have is that the 1% own everything and control everything. And, if they own everything and control everything we don’t really have democracy, do we. That’s what people are saying about contradictions. If we can somehow make it so the people own everything and control everything, we’ll be several steps ahead.
Because Communism is an actual scientific economic theory that works so well that even capitalists study it to learn how to do capitalism better and not easily disproven, pseudoscientific, social Darwinist nonsense like fascism.
Off topic but, I’ve seen you posting a few times here and wanted to say that you’ve got a great screen name and Woody Guthrie would almost definitely be on a platform like this, were he online (and alive).
Almost every socialist party in the world focuses on things they’ll do right now, not in some hypothetical future. I’m a communist because I want improvements to the conditions of the working class immediately, even if it doesn’t create some utopia. That’s why in Chapter 2 of the Communist Manifesto there’s a list of immediate demands once a socialist party takes power, things like abolition of rent-seeking and inheritance.
Because they look at the contradictions and blame them on things like some ethnic group ruining everything. Labor movements have actually traditionally done a lot of that, but fascists solely want to blame regular working class people for the issues that capitalism wrought. (And exterminate them.) And again, we try to avoid talks of utopia. We just want to move on from capitalism.
The goal isn’t to “end politics” but to improve people’s lives. If we abolish the existing power structures, new ones will arise to take their place, yes, but those new ones don’t need to be the same as our current ones, just as a capitalist liberal government isn’t the same as a feudal monarchy.
public functions will lose their political character
That doesn’t mean politics will end, just that administrative functions like constructing and maintaining sewage systems, electrical grids, hospitals, will be cleansed of politics.
Some AES do and some don’t. Some haven’t resolved those contradictions yet and they should be criticized for it. That’s why we use the the term Actual Existing Socialism and not True Perfect Socialism.
These countries are socialist projects, projects that fall within the social revolution, to use Engels term. All AES have broadened democracy comparative to before their projects began and work toward the resolving of contradictions. Just because they haven’t been resolved doesn’t mean those projects arent socialist.
Engels wasn’t a prophet, we don’t worship at the altar of Engels and Marx. They had good ideas, but they weren’t infallible.
This is why most Marxists today are Marxist-Leninists. Because while Marx and Engels wrote a lot of theory, it was just that, theoretical. With the Russian revolution, the Bolsheviks were able to put their theory into practice, some stuff turned out the way they thought it would, other stuff they predicted didn’t happen at all. So the important thing isn’t just theory, but putting that theory into practice and seeing what works and what doesn’t work. It’s always important to exist in the real world, not in an idealistic fantasy. If our ideal system doesn’t work in reality, we must alter it so it does, even if that means it is no longer the hypothetical perfect utopia it once was. “People living better lives” is still “better” even if it isn’t “perfect.”
Facism is essentially capital abandoning liberalism to defend itself in violent reaction to socialism/threat of socialism.
Fascism is an anti-intellectual movement so there’s not much real “theory” but anti-communism is its bedrock belief.
It terms of economics theres really no difference between it and modern neoliberal capitalism
I don’t actually follow your definition at all. I would say that while fascism is not an econimic system itself, that there is no fascism without capitalism
No, but it would look fundamentally different than what it does right now. One of the core premises is that culture & politics are inextricably formed out of property relations & the distribution of economic surpluses.
You’re not wrong, the entire point of Marxist Internationalism & Solidarity is precisely to combat that tendency. In short, this is not really a counter-argument to Marxism, precisely because the vast majority of Marxist theory (that written between the Revolutions of 1848, and the revolutions in Russia & China) are written in exactly that context, and exists to address & make the argument to workers why that’s a bad idea for them to do.
Of course getting people to accept & understand that is harder than just saying it; but the point is that this isn’t something Marxists are unawares of. If you are interested in further (digestable) info on the topic I would suggest the youtube channels Jonas Čeika - CCK Philosophy, Hakim, Yugopnik & Second Thought.
It gets sold as you only need to do it once, but it is something that needs constant attention and requires a review of those who say they follow The Revolution to make sure they still continue to do so.
Absolutely, no disagreement on that position.
I think that’s kind of true of all political programs though, to some extent. Everything is of course subject to entropy.
Those are still good channels to check out though, if you’re interested. :3
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Marxists believe in dialectics. In essence, contridictions are inherent and change comes about as the contridictions are resolved.
As the contridictions are resolved, as has happened in past systems, we expect a widening of democracy and better conditions.
Will there be a point where all contridictions are resolved? We don’t know for certain, but the path toward that point improves peoples lives and liberates people from their current state of exploitation and oppression
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The socialist project is not to just solve economic inequality and then call it a day. In fact, and once again because or ideology is based on dialectics, we understand that to work toward economic equality you must also work toward political equality. Working out these things is a process of “resolving the contridictions” within our class relationships. The aim of this is a classless society, which would mean all contridictions have been resolved and class struggle ends
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The Revolution is not an event. It is an ongoing process. Its is not a singular event exactly like you say. We already believe that. “The witheting away of the state” is component of Marxist-Leninidt thought. The Revolution is the ongoing process where as i said earlier, we contnue to resolve the contridictions
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The beginnings of capitalism may go back as far as the 1300s. The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger, which documents this new semi global mercantile system goes to 1533. There was encirclements that began shortly after until much of the land in europe had become private property.
The English capitalists had their revolution/civil war from 1640-1660, supplanting the power of the monarchy, the French and the american revolutions near the end of the 1700s. These were the big capitalist revolutions. They happened at the end of hundreds of years of development, struggle, change, etc.,
When we talk about socialist revolution we aren’t talking about a war, we are talking about the replacement of a whole system of social relations. There are wars fought, and uprisings and all sorts of historic struggle and conflict. But those aren’t the revolution we are referring to.
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A socialist society widens democracy to accommodate for this.
The following is from a Marxist Leninist perspective - other socialist tendencies are available:
For MLs we want to maintain state power in order to defend against hostile capitalist states and internal counter revolutionaries. Lenin describes this as a state, but not a state. He views the state as smashed as power transfers from the bourgeois to the proletariat.
The class enemy being put down, state power no longer is used to oppress the proletariat. The democractic process can be used after this point to deal with the remaining/new contridictions that exist/arise.
The reason why liberal democracy cannot provide the same thing for the proletariat is because liberal democracy is designed for and controled by the bourgeois to enact their oppression upon the proletariat.
The revolution isn’t a singular event, but its also not a succession of violent conflicts. The class enemy being eradicated means true democratic process can exist
I agree. We need a significant, worker led, social, uprising. A Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution if you will.
I am not memeing here. Read some Maoist stuff, you might actually tend towards that
One of the biggest historical arguments on the left from all sides is against the idea of Utopianism. There are huge, obvious problems with capitalism that can be fixed, but they’re not the end of it. Where we go from there is almost anyone’s guess.
The immediate problem we have is that the 1% own everything and control everything. And, if they own everything and control everything we don’t really have democracy, do we. That’s what people are saying about contradictions. If we can somehow make it so the people own everything and control everything, we’ll be several steps ahead.
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Because Communism is an actual scientific economic theory that works so well that even capitalists study it to learn how to do capitalism better and not easily disproven, pseudoscientific, social Darwinist nonsense like fascism.
Off topic but, I’ve seen you posting a few times here and wanted to say that you’ve got a great screen name and Woody Guthrie would almost definitely be on a platform like this, were he online (and alive).
👍🎸
Almost every socialist party in the world focuses on things they’ll do right now, not in some hypothetical future. I’m a communist because I want improvements to the conditions of the working class immediately, even if it doesn’t create some utopia. That’s why in Chapter 2 of the Communist Manifesto there’s a list of immediate demands once a socialist party takes power, things like abolition of rent-seeking and inheritance.
Because they look at the contradictions and blame them on things like some ethnic group ruining everything. Labor movements have actually traditionally done a lot of that, but fascists solely want to blame regular working class people for the issues that capitalism wrought. (And exterminate them.) And again, we try to avoid talks of utopia. We just want to move on from capitalism.
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You take power and start fixing the problems, and you ban people who thinks Jews and immigrants are the problem from saying that or holding any power.
If you want to see some of the most disturbing shit ever recorded about that. CW I don’t have all the Hexbear features, it’s the act of killing. It’s a doc where they interview people who murdered about a million suspected communists in Indonesia and then had some of the people who did it put on a stage production about it: https://www.nipissingu.ca/library/video-streaming-nipissing/humanities-and-social-sciences-videos/act-killing
Also, these guys are still walking around and are deeply embedded into local politics.
I got halfway through this. Never finished it…
Hell if I know.
The goal isn’t to “end politics” but to improve people’s lives. If we abolish the existing power structures, new ones will arise to take their place, yes, but those new ones don’t need to be the same as our current ones, just as a capitalist liberal government isn’t the same as a feudal monarchy.
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That doesn’t mean politics will end, just that administrative functions like constructing and maintaining sewage systems, electrical grids, hospitals, will be cleansed of politics.
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intersectional liberation is necessary to communism, which is itself “the doctrine of the liberation of the proletariat”
This is some “Marx never considered X” shit at this point. Its a 200 year long intellectual tradition - it has been considered
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Some AES do and some don’t. Some haven’t resolved those contradictions yet and they should be criticized for it. That’s why we use the the term Actual Existing Socialism and not True Perfect Socialism.
These countries are socialist projects, projects that fall within the social revolution, to use Engels term. All AES have broadened democracy comparative to before their projects began and work toward the resolving of contradictions. Just because they haven’t been resolved doesn’t mean those projects arent socialist.
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Engels wasn’t a prophet, we don’t worship at the altar of Engels and Marx. They had good ideas, but they weren’t infallible.
This is why most Marxists today are Marxist-Leninists. Because while Marx and Engels wrote a lot of theory, it was just that, theoretical. With the Russian revolution, the Bolsheviks were able to put their theory into practice, some stuff turned out the way they thought it would, other stuff they predicted didn’t happen at all. So the important thing isn’t just theory, but putting that theory into practice and seeing what works and what doesn’t work. It’s always important to exist in the real world, not in an idealistic fantasy. If our ideal system doesn’t work in reality, we must alter it so it does, even if that means it is no longer the hypothetical perfect utopia it once was. “People living better lives” is still “better” even if it isn’t “perfect.”
Do you have a lot of experience with life in a world where everyone’s “economic needs” are met
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those people are still living within a capitalist society
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i don’t think you understand how either capitalism or fascism works
It seems that no they don’t know how capitalism or fascism works, but they like it
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Facism is essentially capital abandoning liberalism to defend itself in violent reaction to socialism/threat of socialism.
Fascism is an anti-intellectual movement so there’s not much real “theory” but anti-communism is its bedrock belief.
It terms of economics theres really no difference between it and modern neoliberal capitalism
I don’t actually follow your definition at all. I would say that while fascism is not an econimic system itself, that there is no fascism without capitalism
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politics and economics are just two faces of the same thing. all power relations originate in production.
that’s why it was called “political economy” before liberalism came up with the scam of separating them
No, but it would look fundamentally different than what it does right now. One of the core premises is that culture & politics are inextricably formed out of property relations & the distribution of economic surpluses.
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You’re not wrong, the entire point of Marxist Internationalism & Solidarity is precisely to combat that tendency. In short, this is not really a counter-argument to Marxism, precisely because the vast majority of Marxist theory (that written between the Revolutions of 1848, and the revolutions in Russia & China) are written in exactly that context, and exists to address & make the argument to workers why that’s a bad idea for them to do.
Of course getting people to accept & understand that is harder than just saying it; but the point is that this isn’t something Marxists are unawares of. If you are interested in further (digestable) info on the topic I would suggest the youtube channels Jonas Čeika - CCK Philosophy, Hakim, Yugopnik & Second Thought.
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Absolutely, no disagreement on that position.
I think that’s kind of true of all political programs though, to some extent. Everything is of course subject to entropy.
Those are still good channels to check out though, if you’re interested. :3
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The opposite is observed in practice. In both the USSR and even moreso in the PRC, the single-party state encompassed wild swings in economic policy.
The joke goes, in the US you can change the party but not the policy, in China you can’t change the party but you can change the policy.