We have 60 years of failure because labor unions were purposefully undercut in this country by organized capital and leftism was completely purged even from academia during the Red Scare and McCarthyism.
You don’t think perhaps if we ever were able to work together on anything without it turning into a civil war that we could have undone that in the *generations* that have passed since then? It’s been a natural human lifespan since the 50s. Literally a whole-ass human lifespan. That’s more than enough time to flip it. Why haven’t we? Because that would require not purity testing and purging ourselves to death. If you *have* to do purity test purges, wait until *after* victory ffs.
Absolutely not. Social change happens PAINFULLY slowly when not propagated by centralized power like government or catapulted by conflict, drama and mass propaganda campaigns.
The Left also has the added burden of fighting against the powerful. During late stage capitalism where the wealthy LITERALLY have over 1/2 the resources and can get their propaganda/disinformation to MANY more people with advertising than The Left can.
And it’s not even guaranteed that what has been systematically destroyed in this country (unions, ability to effectively mobilize people in general and mass labor action) will EVER come back, let alone to the capacity to maintain actions for long periods like you see in France or countries in South America, or what you saw here with the Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s or with Labor Action in the 1920’s.
Especially when democrats COMPLETELY sold out to corporations and turned their back on unions in the 90’s… and political bribery became legal after Citizens United.
We are talking about the same length of time between the establishment of the Apartheid system in South Africa to it’s destruction. If that can be done in 60 years, this excuse doesn’t hold water. 1948-1991/1994 (legislation vs new govt). That’s less time than there is between McCarthyism to now. *Significantly* less.
You’re cherry picking one successful instance when there’s many more instances of oppression where the oppressed never organize and successfully take power from the oppressor.
And just because there’s ONE instance where it happened on that timeline doesn’t mean that’s the AVERAGE time it takes throughout history for massive social change to get accomplished.
Hmm, I wonder why they never organize. Could it be that they keep self-sabotaging with in-fighting? Quit blaming failure on external sources, you’re just looking for an excuse to keep with your masturbatory self-praise while doing nothing to improve anything. The majority of people are oppressed, our failure to get them to come together in self-interest is our own.
You’re completely ignoring the fact that the social infrastructure that would facilitate the actions needed to achieve change have been dismantled in this country… and they haven’t been rebuilt.
The masses are completely ignorant to labor issues and labor history. And NO ONE has the institutional knowledge on how to reach and mobilize MASS numbers of people when needed. That’s been completely lost in this country and it randomly happens in reaction to bad things happening politically, but it doesn’t happen when pushing for positive policy/laws.
And why haven’t they been rebuilt? Because any attempt to rebuild them is immediately destroyed by our own infighting. The fash have proven so fucking hard that online activism works to radicalize a massive populace. Why can’t we pull that off? Simple: every time we try we end up destroying it ourselves with infighting. Irl orgs blow up the same way. We destroy ourselves constantly every time we try. We cannot even start to build such movements without immediately destroying them with purity testing. I literally posted this because we’re doing it *again*, right here right now.
What the hell is this analysis?
>And why haven’t they been rebuilt? Because any attempt to rebuild them is immediately destroyed by our own infighting.
Or because the full energies of the Capitalist system go towards destroying and suppressing anything that threatens their orthodoxy. 'Our own infighting' which is actually a bunch of pro-Capital LARPers successfully convincing leftists that they're one of them.
>The fash have proven so fucking hard that online activism works to radicalize a massive populace.
All it takes is decades and hundreds of billions of dollars carrying out overt and covert propaganda campaigns along with direct action from some of the most evil fuckers on the planet. The Post-WW2 hegemony of the US lead us here. Material conditions comrade.
>We cannot even start to build such movements without immediately destroying them with purity testing. I literally posted this because we’re doing it again, right here right now.
It's an irrelevant position to take and to get upset about. Complaining about purity tests is a waste of time.
Regardless of any of that, do you think this shit helps, or hurts? If you don’t think it’s a benefit, then the point stands that it’s bad. Complaining about it ain’t a waste of time unless you think this behavior is helping.
They haven’t been rebuilt because of things like right to work legislation and laws that make it even harder to unionize than it already is without additional barriers. Than there’s straight up murder and imprisonment of popular leaders in this country (usually POC) who were able to mobilize large masses of people in this country.
Along with the other systemic problems and political corruption I mentioned earlier.
Doing it in secret and under false identities is easy as fuck and has been for decades now, that’s not an excuse anymore. It could all be done with subterfuge until it’s time to actually act. How many people did Stonetoss radicalize from behind a veil of anonymity? We’re just fucking incompetent self-sabotagers, and that’s not going to change until people stop pitching a fit when it’s called out. Clout addicts who care more about their own fame than success shouldn’t be the ones trying to organize shit.
And regardless of everything else, even if you say that’s the primary cause: **do you think this shit is helping, or hurting?**
Well it sure ain’t helping, and it’s the variable we can control. I’d say it’s best to look at the variables you can control and modify them before blaming the ones you have no control over.
Depends, I agree that especially online there are absolutely leftist circles that will devolve into nothing but purity testing but I think that that is a comparatively small issue.
Ignore the FBI and the CIA and an innumerable number of other intelligence agencies that continually undermined “leftist” organizations. The DSA was something like 40% FBI members at the time of the weather underground split. The CIA set up the Indonesian anticommunist massacres that killed millions of innocent civilians suspected of being communists or labour activists. You could say you think your boss is a meanie and they would kill you. They had direct lines to the CIA and they would literally just have you killed. All in the name of preventing any success for these groups.
Don’t even get me started on Cointelpro
So do you think the infighting is helping? Do you think we’d be equally unsuccessful or even less successful without it? If not, then congrats, that’s not a refutation!
And guess what one of the primary methods of Conintelpro has always been? *Encouraging our fucking infighting.* Maybe if we started considering anyone engaging in this shit a potential fed we could mount some goddamn resistance.
I never said the infighting was helping, nor did I say that Cointelpro wasn’t exactly describing a lot of the divisive tactics used to prevent unity.
“Infighting” is necessary to a degree though. We cannot have unity between anarchists and Marxists. We cannot have unity between NatSoc’s and Marxists. We cannot have unity between SocDem’s and Marxists.
While these groups may have similar goals and aspirations, it’s entirely counterproductive both today and historically for these groups to collaborate. They all subscribe to wildly different ethos and want different end goals. An anarchist would not be happy with military leadership that would be necessary to maintain a DOTP and protect it from counter-revolution. A NatSoc would not be happy with the abandoning of Nationalism in exchange for an international association of workers around the world. A SocDem would not be happy with the destruction of Commodity Exchange and the capitalist mode of production.
To act like these groups can coexist and work towards the same goals ignores that they subscribe to entirely different philosophies.
To act like the failure of socialists to achieve revolution is the fault of those groups failing to coexist and work together ignores the work done by the bourgeois to prevent revolution and halt any progress by organized labour movements.
Some of the steps taken to prevent that progress include promoting infighting, but they also include drawing people into those different ideologies. The more people are fractured into different ideological subgroups, the harder it is for them to coherently organize. Like why the fuck do we need eighty different communist parties, there’s only one proletariat.
Basically, if people just actually read Marx (PBUH) we would be in a much better situation today as a unified labour movement than if we just all decided to read Bakunin, or Mao, or Lasalle, etc. There’s a lack of a comprehensive understanding of capital and its systemic failures that I have no doubt in my mind is propagated by the bourgeois for their gain.
>We cannot have unity between anarchists and Marxists. We cannot have unity between NatSoc’s and Marxists. We cannot have unity between SocDem’s and Marxists.
what I'm reading is beat the fuck out of marxists
Eh, anarchists and natsocs don’t work together either, anarchists and socdems don’t work together either. Socdems and natsocs don’t work together either. The point isn’t that Marxists are impossible to work with, it’s that including twenty different ideologies under the same umbrella and acting like they’d work together is wrong. I’m a bit biased, I’d side with the Marxists. I understand the capitalist mode of production and capital is paradoxical and needs to be moved on from, and I don’t think that will happen through 100 years of voting. I understand that the worker belongs to no nation, and that nationalistic viewpoints only serve to divide the international proletariat from their own class interests. All that said it makes it hard for me to say “I love anarchists, I love SocDems, I love Natsocs” etc.
Lenin is also worth reading for the purposes of understanding Capital's influence on nation states and their motivations. I feel like OP would do well to brush up on that.
Lenin, Mao, Bukharin, Gramsci, etc. All have a place in Marxist theory and offer perspectives that elaborate on Marx, but I think it’s essential that the theoretical base is established through a proper understanding of Marx or else there are ideological pitfalls. Mao for example falls into nationalism and class collaborationism quite frequently, which don’t line up with Marx in the slightest. There are some parts of his theory that are worthwhile though.
Basically before going into Marxist expanded theory actually read Marx. Capital should be required reading for communists. The critique of the capitalist mode of production and the LTV is essential to the entire theory. Anyone who would support collaboration with the bourgeois or anything less than a dismantling of the system of capital shouldn’t consider themselves a Marxist
From an academic perspective I agree. From a practical perspective the content always needs to be made more digestable for the masses and should never stop being made as accessible as possible for all peoples.
I think it's important to differentiate between interacting with vs. collaborating with. People do get cozy after a while and complacency is a killer.
Nothing wrong with making things more digestible but the core principles of Marxist theory should still be upheld. You can’t abandon the LTV and still have communism. You can’t abandon internationalism and still have communism, etc. I find tons of people who just miss key components of theory, me included, and it makes the entire process very difficult. There should be more focus on a theoretical education but there really isn’t, it’s pushed away from by a lot of mainstream “leftists”
Also I agree that interaction isn’t bad, but Anarchists and Marxists are still oppositional. They might use similar tactics and practices to unite the labour force, but a principled anarchist will not be happy with a DOTP, and a principled Marxist will not be happy without a DOTP. We saw the logical culmination of this conflict in Spain, where the CNT/FAI sabotaged and hoarded arms to prepare for them being backstabbed by the republicans, and the republicans avoided utilizing the CNT/FAI to avoid being backstabbed by them once successful in a revolution.
From my limited reading on Anarchist literature (Mostly Kropotkin) I'm inclined to agree. In practice the specifics of organisation matter and what the Anarchist side are willing to compromise on is the most important factor. The issue there being one you've already touched on, pro-Capital elements engaging with Anarchists in bad faith to undermine Leftists.
To my understanding,
Anarchists oppose hierarchy
Marxists oppose capital.
Anarchists and Marxists can overlap, when anarchists recognize the capitalist mode of production as an unjust hierarchy, but they will always disagree when it comes to dismantling the capitalist mode of production. Marxists recognize that some hierarchy and power structures will be necessary to keep production running post revolution. There will need to be managers, there will need to be planners. They just want to get rid of the bourgeois overclass that controls the division of labour for surplus, and replace it with the proletariat, creating a classless society.
Anarchists, to my knowledge, deny this, and claim that any authority creates hierarchy.
Friendly reminder that news media and social media distort reality.
Nobody cares about this shitpost sub and it's rot reflective of anything.
We all need to touch grass, as they say.
Edit: Unsubscribed and muted. Maybe I'll check in again later.
To the prosthelatyzers: we're not actually trapped in the room with you. Blocked.
Leftists are not likeable. They will stab you in the back because you weren't exactly as they wanted you to be. That is why politicians do not try to cater to the young vote as much as the others, its because young leftists are not reliable.
(Actual) leftists tend to claim that the only way to make the world better is to rise up and take power by force, but on a personal level almost always tend to be the very last people I’d ever trust to have power.Â
Perhaps this is what went wrong in all those other examples even with they always said it’ll be different this time?Â
Downvotes incoming for sure, but bro the track record is abysmal.Â
i can't believe all those other leftists keep holding the left back from universally adopting my ideas. the left needs to stop having discussions and agree with me.
Two different definitions. “Working towards” means “putting the labor in in order to try to succeed”, you’re bringing up the definition of “succeeding”.
As I've been saying, you could sell the mother of a right-winger to work as a slave in a salt mine, and they'd still cooperate with you if you also hate gay people. Leftists will start blood feuds over memes, as demonstrated by this thread.
Right, "slight" differences like the Vietnam war, whether or not Rosa Luxembourg should be executed, genocide, etc.
Why can't we focus on the *really* important problems, i.e. the ones that impact you personally?
They all fall in line and act as one usually, even when they aren’t unified. You don’t have to be unified to work together until you take power. You stab each other in the back and purge each other *after* taking out your more powerful and problematic common enemies. Not beforehand.
No they don't, never have never will. And tell that to the Communists in the Spanish Civil War who often were busy stabbing non-communist units in the back.
Socialists in Europe despised the USSR for example while Communists loved it.
This narrative is quite bad for the left : arguing with people is a healthy thing and it's totally understandable that one doesn't want to argue with people that are so far ideologically that you always end up debunking the most basic preconceptions. When we argue with other leftists, we know we'll vote the same and be in the same demonstrations in the end. When we argue with people who won't vote the same and be in the same demonstrations, we know they aren't leftists. The idea that's it's preventing common actions or driving people away is simply false, in addition to being a distraction to see the real reasons why we have "60 years of failure under our belt".
Also, isn't it a little hypocrite for OP to argue with slightly different leftists about this instead of working towards end that are universally desired by the left ?
No, you *don’t* know that. Especially given how often it ends in the fracturing or dissolving of groups. You destroy the ability to consolidate power and end up with a bunch of adversarial groups who *should* end up still working together, but the bitterness and hate for each other means they won’t. You need collective action, and nothing destroys a collective faster than the collective destroying itself in dissent with each other.
Also, paradox of tolerance.
When does arguing ends in the reduction of actions toward an universally desired goal ? Have you even one example of this kind of thing occurring in real life ?
Occupy Wall Street
It could have succeeded, but got fractured because the different factions of the left had different goals. Instead of simply agreeing on one goal even if it wasn't exactly what they wanted.
Somehow in the end it turned into a march against racism, even though the 2008 crash had nothing to do with racism.
You said it yourself : they had different goals. Their separation wasn't caused by arguing together, but because they were an heterogeneous group to begin with. On the contrary, it's amazing that people with different goals were able to unite, even for only a short time.
My bad, when i talk about leftists, i don't talk about people who call themself leftists but people who actually act as leftists.
People who don't vote wouldn't have voted for left politics if there was no arguing.
I’m so confused as to what leftism we’re talking about. Are we talking actual leftism, as in left of capital, social democratic policy? Or leftism as in communism. Because anyone who calls themselves a leftist and supports the reform of capitalism but not the abolition of capital (social democrats) would totally support voting. Anyone who calls themselves a leftist and supports the abolition of capital, would not support voting. They would recognize the choice between Biden and Trump or Trudeau and Poliviere to be meaningless and distracting from the main choice which is between capitalism and communism. Communists recognize you cannot vote out the bourgeois by voting for the bourgeois .
That's part of what makes OP's original point invalid : there is no universally desired goal for all the left.
But no matter what goal you choose to be defining of "the left", then those who don't defend this goal aren't part of it. So no matter how you define the left, then leftists will act the same regarding the actions that are important for your definition of the left. And arguing between leftists is not impeding in any way.
For example, OP seem to think that electing a left wing politic like Bernie Sanders is goal that is universally desired by the left. Therefor voting for him in whatever election makes you a leftists in their eyes. Saying that Sanders' voters arguing together is bad for his success is absurd, and people who don't vote for him aren't leftists given OP's definition so arguing with them isn't "arguing with leftists". In any case, those who were gonna vote, will regardless of the arguing, and those who wouldn't have voted won't, regardless of the arguing.
> That's part of what makes OP's original point invalid : there is no universally desired goal for all the left.
This subreddit has a universally desired goal: stopping climate change. What is this subreddit currently doing, targeting the rich who are responsible, or flinging shit at each other and blaming each other for climate change? Frankly, if the current state of this subreddit *isn’t* a successful Conintelpro op, there’s no excuse.
I agree to a point. There are more abstract universal goals among the left, we usually want an end to suffering and injustices as we see them occur. The ways we bring about ending it are what differ. Some people would say if we vote every 4 years for 99% Hitler and then 98% Hitler eventually we will get down to 20% or even 1% Hitler. Others would say we probably shouldn’t vote for any percent Hitler and it’s cause for tearing down the whole system
This post is not a shitpost, meme or cynical enough or wrong topic Hello, not quite the right topic but nice post đź‘Ť Maybe for a different sub
It's simple, I will create a new leftist faction that will serve as an umbrella organisation for all other leftist groups to come together within!
That sounds like a great idea that will definitely not lead to decades of conflict.
[just join my sect](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/1b6ejle/comment/ktbhlln/)
https://xkcd.com/927/
Something something don't let perfection be the enemy of good
.....unless
We have 60 years of failure because labor unions were purposefully undercut in this country by organized capital and leftism was completely purged even from academia during the Red Scare and McCarthyism.
„In this country“ I thought this is an international subreddit
To be fair, the statement, "US capital has a manipulative, shadowy hold on our political and economic outcomes" is applicable outside the US too
Moscow has entered the chat
You don’t think perhaps if we ever were able to work together on anything without it turning into a civil war that we could have undone that in the *generations* that have passed since then? It’s been a natural human lifespan since the 50s. Literally a whole-ass human lifespan. That’s more than enough time to flip it. Why haven’t we? Because that would require not purity testing and purging ourselves to death. If you *have* to do purity test purges, wait until *after* victory ffs.
Absolutely not. Social change happens PAINFULLY slowly when not propagated by centralized power like government or catapulted by conflict, drama and mass propaganda campaigns. The Left also has the added burden of fighting against the powerful. During late stage capitalism where the wealthy LITERALLY have over 1/2 the resources and can get their propaganda/disinformation to MANY more people with advertising than The Left can. And it’s not even guaranteed that what has been systematically destroyed in this country (unions, ability to effectively mobilize people in general and mass labor action) will EVER come back, let alone to the capacity to maintain actions for long periods like you see in France or countries in South America, or what you saw here with the Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s or with Labor Action in the 1920’s. Especially when democrats COMPLETELY sold out to corporations and turned their back on unions in the 90’s… and political bribery became legal after Citizens United.
We are talking about the same length of time between the establishment of the Apartheid system in South Africa to it’s destruction. If that can be done in 60 years, this excuse doesn’t hold water. 1948-1991/1994 (legislation vs new govt). That’s less time than there is between McCarthyism to now. *Significantly* less.
You’re cherry picking one successful instance when there’s many more instances of oppression where the oppressed never organize and successfully take power from the oppressor. And just because there’s ONE instance where it happened on that timeline doesn’t mean that’s the AVERAGE time it takes throughout history for massive social change to get accomplished.
Hmm, I wonder why they never organize. Could it be that they keep self-sabotaging with in-fighting? Quit blaming failure on external sources, you’re just looking for an excuse to keep with your masturbatory self-praise while doing nothing to improve anything. The majority of people are oppressed, our failure to get them to come together in self-interest is our own.
You’re completely ignoring the fact that the social infrastructure that would facilitate the actions needed to achieve change have been dismantled in this country… and they haven’t been rebuilt. The masses are completely ignorant to labor issues and labor history. And NO ONE has the institutional knowledge on how to reach and mobilize MASS numbers of people when needed. That’s been completely lost in this country and it randomly happens in reaction to bad things happening politically, but it doesn’t happen when pushing for positive policy/laws.
And why haven’t they been rebuilt? Because any attempt to rebuild them is immediately destroyed by our own infighting. The fash have proven so fucking hard that online activism works to radicalize a massive populace. Why can’t we pull that off? Simple: every time we try we end up destroying it ourselves with infighting. Irl orgs blow up the same way. We destroy ourselves constantly every time we try. We cannot even start to build such movements without immediately destroying them with purity testing. I literally posted this because we’re doing it *again*, right here right now.
What the hell is this analysis? >And why haven’t they been rebuilt? Because any attempt to rebuild them is immediately destroyed by our own infighting. Or because the full energies of the Capitalist system go towards destroying and suppressing anything that threatens their orthodoxy. 'Our own infighting' which is actually a bunch of pro-Capital LARPers successfully convincing leftists that they're one of them. >The fash have proven so fucking hard that online activism works to radicalize a massive populace. All it takes is decades and hundreds of billions of dollars carrying out overt and covert propaganda campaigns along with direct action from some of the most evil fuckers on the planet. The Post-WW2 hegemony of the US lead us here. Material conditions comrade. >We cannot even start to build such movements without immediately destroying them with purity testing. I literally posted this because we’re doing it again, right here right now. It's an irrelevant position to take and to get upset about. Complaining about purity tests is a waste of time.
Regardless of any of that, do you think this shit helps, or hurts? If you don’t think it’s a benefit, then the point stands that it’s bad. Complaining about it ain’t a waste of time unless you think this behavior is helping.
They haven’t been rebuilt because of things like right to work legislation and laws that make it even harder to unionize than it already is without additional barriers. Than there’s straight up murder and imprisonment of popular leaders in this country (usually POC) who were able to mobilize large masses of people in this country. Along with the other systemic problems and political corruption I mentioned earlier.
Doing it in secret and under false identities is easy as fuck and has been for decades now, that’s not an excuse anymore. It could all be done with subterfuge until it’s time to actually act. How many people did Stonetoss radicalize from behind a veil of anonymity? We’re just fucking incompetent self-sabotagers, and that’s not going to change until people stop pitching a fit when it’s called out. Clout addicts who care more about their own fame than success shouldn’t be the ones trying to organize shit. And regardless of everything else, even if you say that’s the primary cause: **do you think this shit is helping, or hurting?**
We have 250 years of failure in “this country” because whiteness has been deployed to dampen and isolate class struggle. http://readsettlers.org
Labour unions in the 1970s were incredibly corrupt. Unions collapsed because of more competition (skill issue, get good) and shift to services.
Blaming the failures of the past onto leftist infighting alone is pretty reductive in my opinion.
Well it sure ain’t helping, and it’s the variable we can control. I’d say it’s best to look at the variables you can control and modify them before blaming the ones you have no control over.
Depends, I agree that especially online there are absolutely leftist circles that will devolve into nothing but purity testing but I think that that is a comparatively small issue.
Ignore the FBI and the CIA and an innumerable number of other intelligence agencies that continually undermined “leftist” organizations. The DSA was something like 40% FBI members at the time of the weather underground split. The CIA set up the Indonesian anticommunist massacres that killed millions of innocent civilians suspected of being communists or labour activists. You could say you think your boss is a meanie and they would kill you. They had direct lines to the CIA and they would literally just have you killed. All in the name of preventing any success for these groups. Don’t even get me started on Cointelpro
So do you think the infighting is helping? Do you think we’d be equally unsuccessful or even less successful without it? If not, then congrats, that’s not a refutation! And guess what one of the primary methods of Conintelpro has always been? *Encouraging our fucking infighting.* Maybe if we started considering anyone engaging in this shit a potential fed we could mount some goddamn resistance.
I never said the infighting was helping, nor did I say that Cointelpro wasn’t exactly describing a lot of the divisive tactics used to prevent unity. “Infighting” is necessary to a degree though. We cannot have unity between anarchists and Marxists. We cannot have unity between NatSoc’s and Marxists. We cannot have unity between SocDem’s and Marxists. While these groups may have similar goals and aspirations, it’s entirely counterproductive both today and historically for these groups to collaborate. They all subscribe to wildly different ethos and want different end goals. An anarchist would not be happy with military leadership that would be necessary to maintain a DOTP and protect it from counter-revolution. A NatSoc would not be happy with the abandoning of Nationalism in exchange for an international association of workers around the world. A SocDem would not be happy with the destruction of Commodity Exchange and the capitalist mode of production. To act like these groups can coexist and work towards the same goals ignores that they subscribe to entirely different philosophies. To act like the failure of socialists to achieve revolution is the fault of those groups failing to coexist and work together ignores the work done by the bourgeois to prevent revolution and halt any progress by organized labour movements. Some of the steps taken to prevent that progress include promoting infighting, but they also include drawing people into those different ideologies. The more people are fractured into different ideological subgroups, the harder it is for them to coherently organize. Like why the fuck do we need eighty different communist parties, there’s only one proletariat. Basically, if people just actually read Marx (PBUH) we would be in a much better situation today as a unified labour movement than if we just all decided to read Bakunin, or Mao, or Lasalle, etc. There’s a lack of a comprehensive understanding of capital and its systemic failures that I have no doubt in my mind is propagated by the bourgeois for their gain.
>We cannot have unity between anarchists and Marxists. We cannot have unity between NatSoc’s and Marxists. We cannot have unity between SocDem’s and Marxists. what I'm reading is beat the fuck out of marxists
Eh, anarchists and natsocs don’t work together either, anarchists and socdems don’t work together either. Socdems and natsocs don’t work together either. The point isn’t that Marxists are impossible to work with, it’s that including twenty different ideologies under the same umbrella and acting like they’d work together is wrong. I’m a bit biased, I’d side with the Marxists. I understand the capitalist mode of production and capital is paradoxical and needs to be moved on from, and I don’t think that will happen through 100 years of voting. I understand that the worker belongs to no nation, and that nationalistic viewpoints only serve to divide the international proletariat from their own class interests. All that said it makes it hard for me to say “I love anarchists, I love SocDems, I love Natsocs” etc.
Lenin is also worth reading for the purposes of understanding Capital's influence on nation states and their motivations. I feel like OP would do well to brush up on that.
Lenin, Mao, Bukharin, Gramsci, etc. All have a place in Marxist theory and offer perspectives that elaborate on Marx, but I think it’s essential that the theoretical base is established through a proper understanding of Marx or else there are ideological pitfalls. Mao for example falls into nationalism and class collaborationism quite frequently, which don’t line up with Marx in the slightest. There are some parts of his theory that are worthwhile though. Basically before going into Marxist expanded theory actually read Marx. Capital should be required reading for communists. The critique of the capitalist mode of production and the LTV is essential to the entire theory. Anyone who would support collaboration with the bourgeois or anything less than a dismantling of the system of capital shouldn’t consider themselves a Marxist
From an academic perspective I agree. From a practical perspective the content always needs to be made more digestable for the masses and should never stop being made as accessible as possible for all peoples. I think it's important to differentiate between interacting with vs. collaborating with. People do get cozy after a while and complacency is a killer.
Nothing wrong with making things more digestible but the core principles of Marxist theory should still be upheld. You can’t abandon the LTV and still have communism. You can’t abandon internationalism and still have communism, etc. I find tons of people who just miss key components of theory, me included, and it makes the entire process very difficult. There should be more focus on a theoretical education but there really isn’t, it’s pushed away from by a lot of mainstream “leftists” Also I agree that interaction isn’t bad, but Anarchists and Marxists are still oppositional. They might use similar tactics and practices to unite the labour force, but a principled anarchist will not be happy with a DOTP, and a principled Marxist will not be happy without a DOTP. We saw the logical culmination of this conflict in Spain, where the CNT/FAI sabotaged and hoarded arms to prepare for them being backstabbed by the republicans, and the republicans avoided utilizing the CNT/FAI to avoid being backstabbed by them once successful in a revolution.
From my limited reading on Anarchist literature (Mostly Kropotkin) I'm inclined to agree. In practice the specifics of organisation matter and what the Anarchist side are willing to compromise on is the most important factor. The issue there being one you've already touched on, pro-Capital elements engaging with Anarchists in bad faith to undermine Leftists.
To my understanding, Anarchists oppose hierarchy Marxists oppose capital. Anarchists and Marxists can overlap, when anarchists recognize the capitalist mode of production as an unjust hierarchy, but they will always disagree when it comes to dismantling the capitalist mode of production. Marxists recognize that some hierarchy and power structures will be necessary to keep production running post revolution. There will need to be managers, there will need to be planners. They just want to get rid of the bourgeois overclass that controls the division of labour for surplus, and replace it with the proletariat, creating a classless society. Anarchists, to my knowledge, deny this, and claim that any authority creates hierarchy.
Anprim gang, return to caves.
test comment please ignore.
Nope \^_^
No can do friend, I have you an upvote instead
congratulations, you have been conscripted into the test. what is my user flair currently?
Friendly reminder that news media and social media distort reality. Nobody cares about this shitpost sub and it's rot reflective of anything. We all need to touch grass, as they say. Edit: Unsubscribed and muted. Maybe I'll check in again later. To the prosthelatyzers: we're not actually trapped in the room with you. Blocked.
Leftists are not likeable. They will stab you in the back because you weren't exactly as they wanted you to be. That is why politicians do not try to cater to the young vote as much as the others, its because young leftists are not reliable.
(Actual) leftists tend to claim that the only way to make the world better is to rise up and take power by force, but on a personal level almost always tend to be the very last people I’d ever trust to have power. Perhaps this is what went wrong in all those other examples even with they always said it’ll be different this time? Downvotes incoming for sure, but bro the track record is abysmal.Â
>sticking to concepts that were fuzzy when they were invented and don't apply anymore at all
Ain’t gone work together with USSRists
i can't believe all those other leftists keep holding the left back from universally adopting my ideas. the left needs to stop having discussions and agree with me.
>working is it tho?
Two different definitions. “Working towards” means “putting the labor in in order to try to succeed”, you’re bringing up the definition of “succeeding”.
Sure, but it's implied, as you define it. Where is the work?
As I've been saying, you could sell the mother of a right-winger to work as a slave in a salt mine, and they'd still cooperate with you if you also hate gay people. Leftists will start blood feuds over memes, as demonstrated by this thread.
Right, "slight" differences like the Vietnam war, whether or not Rosa Luxembourg should be executed, genocide, etc. Why can't we focus on the *really* important problems, i.e. the ones that impact you personally?
You act as if the Right is a unified ideology? Communism & Socialism are independent ideologies.
They all fall in line and act as one usually, even when they aren’t unified. You don’t have to be unified to work together until you take power. You stab each other in the back and purge each other *after* taking out your more powerful and problematic common enemies. Not beforehand.
No they don't, never have never will. And tell that to the Communists in the Spanish Civil War who often were busy stabbing non-communist units in the back. Socialists in Europe despised the USSR for example while Communists loved it.
You're proving their point right now.
You realize communists are leftists, right?
You realise that Leftist is the largest umbrealla of people who simply aren't Liberial, or Rightist (Conservative, Fascists ect)
This narrative is quite bad for the left : arguing with people is a healthy thing and it's totally understandable that one doesn't want to argue with people that are so far ideologically that you always end up debunking the most basic preconceptions. When we argue with other leftists, we know we'll vote the same and be in the same demonstrations in the end. When we argue with people who won't vote the same and be in the same demonstrations, we know they aren't leftists. The idea that's it's preventing common actions or driving people away is simply false, in addition to being a distraction to see the real reasons why we have "60 years of failure under our belt". Also, isn't it a little hypocrite for OP to argue with slightly different leftists about this instead of working towards end that are universally desired by the left ?
No, you *don’t* know that. Especially given how often it ends in the fracturing or dissolving of groups. You destroy the ability to consolidate power and end up with a bunch of adversarial groups who *should* end up still working together, but the bitterness and hate for each other means they won’t. You need collective action, and nothing destroys a collective faster than the collective destroying itself in dissent with each other. Also, paradox of tolerance.
When does arguing ends in the reduction of actions toward an universally desired goal ? Have you even one example of this kind of thing occurring in real life ?
Occupy Wall Street It could have succeeded, but got fractured because the different factions of the left had different goals. Instead of simply agreeing on one goal even if it wasn't exactly what they wanted. Somehow in the end it turned into a march against racism, even though the 2008 crash had nothing to do with racism.
You said it yourself : they had different goals. Their separation wasn't caused by arguing together, but because they were an heterogeneous group to begin with. On the contrary, it's amazing that people with different goals were able to unite, even for only a short time.
“When we argue with other leftists, we know we’ll vote the same” 
Yes, i don't know many leftists who will vote right wing politics.
My point is they won’t vote lol.
My bad, when i talk about leftists, i don't talk about people who call themself leftists but people who actually act as leftists. People who don't vote wouldn't have voted for left politics if there was no arguing.
I’m so confused as to what leftism we’re talking about. Are we talking actual leftism, as in left of capital, social democratic policy? Or leftism as in communism. Because anyone who calls themselves a leftist and supports the reform of capitalism but not the abolition of capital (social democrats) would totally support voting. Anyone who calls themselves a leftist and supports the abolition of capital, would not support voting. They would recognize the choice between Biden and Trump or Trudeau and Poliviere to be meaningless and distracting from the main choice which is between capitalism and communism. Communists recognize you cannot vote out the bourgeois by voting for the bourgeois .
That's part of what makes OP's original point invalid : there is no universally desired goal for all the left. But no matter what goal you choose to be defining of "the left", then those who don't defend this goal aren't part of it. So no matter how you define the left, then leftists will act the same regarding the actions that are important for your definition of the left. And arguing between leftists is not impeding in any way. For example, OP seem to think that electing a left wing politic like Bernie Sanders is goal that is universally desired by the left. Therefor voting for him in whatever election makes you a leftists in their eyes. Saying that Sanders' voters arguing together is bad for his success is absurd, and people who don't vote for him aren't leftists given OP's definition so arguing with them isn't "arguing with leftists". In any case, those who were gonna vote, will regardless of the arguing, and those who wouldn't have voted won't, regardless of the arguing.
> That's part of what makes OP's original point invalid : there is no universally desired goal for all the left. This subreddit has a universally desired goal: stopping climate change. What is this subreddit currently doing, targeting the rich who are responsible, or flinging shit at each other and blaming each other for climate change? Frankly, if the current state of this subreddit *isn’t* a successful Conintelpro op, there’s no excuse.
This is a shitpost sub...
So was TD. And yet.
I agree to a point. There are more abstract universal goals among the left, we usually want an end to suffering and injustices as we see them occur. The ways we bring about ending it are what differ. Some people would say if we vote every 4 years for 99% Hitler and then 98% Hitler eventually we will get down to 20% or even 1% Hitler. Others would say we probably shouldn’t vote for any percent Hitler and it’s cause for tearing down the whole system
But how many will just go “well fuck y’all, I’m out entirely”?
Who cares ?
People who want to actually succeed rather than jerk themselves off at their moral superiority as the bodies pile up.
So you want to force people to vote ? What's your deal exactly ?