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Doctor Malaver posted:Is there any evidence that people are massively abandoning the idea of nation or are you just presenting your wishes as fact?
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May 28, 2014 15:32
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Mans posted:The Portuguese Communist Party proclaims without a single doubt that fighting against neoliberalism and austerity will only be made by a Leftist and patriotic government. Patriotism should never be forgotten, not as the cornerstone of socialism, but as a vital tool for the creation of socialism. Socialism might be an international movement, but it has to start somewhere, and to take over a national state it matters little to masturbate over solidarity of the Cambodian worker struggle. Good points here, I absolutely agree with you that some level of patriotism is necessary to build socialism. I could be overstating my case in terms of identity politics but my experience is not confined to the internet, there were similar issues regarding Occupy. At any rate I don't think it is appropriate to dissolve elements of identity politics, merely reincorporate them into a more coherent whole. As stated earlier, however, there are individuals that would resist even this. computer parts posted:There are fundamental divisions in society that exist independent of class (for example, when looking at the lower class a black man is poorer than a white man, a white woman is poorer than a white man, etc). Focusing on class is something that will benefit a large part of society, but it will still leave fundamental differences. I'm confused by the usage of "you" here, do you mean like generally or are you actually referring to me?
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May 28, 2014 15:34
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rudatron posted:They haven't abandoned it, it's still a very strong force in the world today. But no serious intellectual could ever claim that you can divide the world up into clear ethnic communities, and that the boundaries of these communities conform to modern political boundaries. That's the lie. I don't think anyone here would claim that either, but national identity is a major motivating factor for much of the world, and insulting people who consider it important is counterproductive.
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May 28, 2014 15:35
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:
From what I've read of your posts, both.
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May 28, 2014 15:35
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computer parts posted:From what I've read of your posts, both. I'm mixed race, actually. Cape verdean creole.
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May 28, 2014 15:36
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:I'm mixed race, actually. Cape verdean creole. Then you do a good job hiding it.
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May 28, 2014 15:38
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computer parts posted:Then you do a good job hiding it. Not sure what this means, either. Desiring a more comprehensive and economically focused course of action for the left does not erase my heritage.
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May 28, 2014 15:43
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:Not sure what this means, either. Desiring a more comprehensive and economically focused course of action for the left does not erase my heritage. Have you spent significant amounts of time in Europe/elsewhere? From what I'm reading Cape Verde is a fairly well developed nation but it's not anywhere close to typical.
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May 28, 2014 15:44
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Crowsbeak posted:I don't think anyone here would claim that either, but national identity is a major motivating factor for much of the world, and insulting people who consider it important is counterproductive. rudatron fucked around with this message at 15:50 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 15:46
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Crowsbeak posted:Yeah you're really going to convince the average worker with that. "Why are you going away? I mean I'm not directly calling you a bigot, I am just comparing you liking your country to a nazi, there is no reason to get so angry!" I'm not calling them a bigot you disingenuous rear end, I'm saying they've been tricked. Patriotism is used to divide people and turn them against each other and to get them to serve the interests of an elite who will gently caress them over the very second it becomes convenient. Who gives a poo poo if someone lives on the other side of an arbitrary border? Why should that make them any less important to anyone else? And you know what? We're all bigoted on some level, and it's our duty to confront and work against those impulses, instead of letting them drive us to harm our fellow human beings. So yes, they are bigots. We all are.
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May 28, 2014 15:47
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computer parts posted:Have you spent significant amounts of time in Europe/elsewhere? From what I'm reading Cape Verde is a fairly well developed nation but it's not anywhere close to typical. I'm an American, actually. Judging from what my father tells me from his latest visit and the economic data I have read I wouldn't personally characterize Cape Verde as well developed, at least by American/Euro standards.
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May 28, 2014 15:50
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:I'm an American, actually. Judging from what my father tells me from his latest visit and the economic data I have read I wouldn't personally characterize Cape Verde as well developed, at least by American/Euro standards. It's developed by African standards at least. Though this does lead to another fundamental divide that's common - typically immigrants and the family thereof in the US are much higher educated/wealthy/etc than native members of their same/similar race.
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May 28, 2014 15:53
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rudatron posted:Absolutely, you can't just offend people and hope they'll go along with what you say. You have to be able to speak to the heart, talking down to members of the working class is hardly a good action for someone who purports to represent them. Yet I still think it's necessary to supplant nationalism, however ingrained it may be. Yeah, "let's not offend the simple-minded worker by threatening their sacred idols" sounds like it comes from some weird kind of paternalist contempt or lack of trust in the revolutionary potential of the working class. Nationalism wan't always around, it was invented by the ruling class, and it was taught to us. It is alien to the workers. What happens when, in times of crisis, socialist parties put the interests of the nation ahead of those of the international proletariat? There also seems to be this weird assumption about left-wing politics that the way it works is by creating a standard bourgeois democratic party and crafting a set of policies through compromise in order to attract the most votes and in the hope of getting elected. That's not how it happens, left-wing politics come from the bottom-up, from the streets: it's about Educating, Agitating, and Organising. In time political parties become forced to adapt to the demands of an organized and class-conscious population, and not the other way around.
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May 28, 2014 16:02
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(double post)
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May 28, 2014 16:03
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:I don't quite understand your point. Could you elaborate? Sexism/racism aren't as important as:
Delete those that don't apply.
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May 28, 2014 16:08
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Bob le Moche posted:Nationalism wan't always around, it was invented by the ruling class, and it was taught to us. It is alien to the workers. What happens when, in times of crisis, socialist parties put the interests of the nation ahead of those of the international proletariat?
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May 28, 2014 16:10
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I mean, you could imagine some Hapsburgs hearing that and thinking "wait we invented this?" *mob burns the palace down*
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May 28, 2014 16:11
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Omi-Polari posted:Wasn't nationalism originally a force that overthrew the traditional ruling class? It was invented by the class that is now the ruling class, the bourgeoisie. It got the lower classes on their side then and kept them on their side throughout the development of capitalism until today.
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May 28, 2014 16:13
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Bob le Moche posted:Seizure of assets to prevent capital flight has precedent even in non-socialist countries. You can't transition to a socialist economy without changing a bunch of laws, though, if that's what you're asking (?) The US industrialized without strong intellectual property systems? Really? You realize that Thomas Edison still holds the record for most patents filed under one name? (Obviously he didn't personally invent all of them) And the Chinese attitude towards intellectual property is already changing, because now they actually have intellectual property of their own that they want to protect. Patents can end up as rent seeking, especially if they're issued too freely, but they are also critical for allowing the creators of genuinely novel inventions to benefit from their work. Without patent protections, if you publicize an innovation then those with the greatest ability to benefit from it will be large corporations with existing factories and engineering staffs, who can bring products to market much quicker than it would take for you to build that infrastructure from scratch. quote:How would closing borders to immigration prevent Viet-Nam from undercutting american factories with cheap exports? It wouldn't, it would prevent the companies from keeping their factories in America and exploiting third world labor at the same time. In a restricted-immigration situation companies can either stay in developed countries and pay higher labor costs or they can outsource to save on labor but shoulder the costs and risks that come with it. quote:In the third world people "voluntarily" decide to get a factory job because capitalism consolidates the land of their country into the hands of a small number of large landowning corporations who put it to use growing cash crops for exports, while food production is undercut by cheap imports from industrialized countries where it is subsidized, thus forcing local peasants to sell their land to the multinationals and become wage laborers. I hope we're beyond the point where anyone has to explain why neocolonialism is not in fact, civilization bringing a better life to the savages. People are definitely being driven off their farms in many places, but not nearly enough to account for the sum of total migration. Most people moving to cities and factory jobs are doing so voluntarily, if you refuse to recognize this you will never be able to grapple with what is actually happening in the world. Hell, in China there are significant legal barriers to moving to a different place and people are doing it anyway, and in India it's so hard to boot people off their land that it's throttling development but people are still leaping at the chance to get the gently caress away from their farms whenever they can. You have a really romanticized view of agricultural life it seems, or you're so stuck on the neo-colonial paradigm that's been dominant in Africa that you're ignoring the titanic shifts of labor in Asia. quote:I don't understand your question. Why is this a bad outcomes besides american lives being more important than vietnamese ones? Also how would socialist America having a closed-borders policy towards Vietnam make the situation better in any way? I never said it was a bad outcome, I asked what your response would be. An America with restricted immigration would be better for American workers, and worse for American capital and any prospective Vietnamese immigrants. I was curious to know how you would balance the interests of these different groups. quote:International solidarity means recognizing that Viet Nam becoming better off is a good thing and that it will benefit Americans and everyone else in the long term if we're aiming to defeat capitalism. It means recognizing that socialism is doomed to fail without a world revolution and it means working towards that end. This has always been a core part of socialism. In the short to medium term, this will cause pain and disruption to American workers, so how do you convince them to sacrifice their interests in the name of international solidarity? It will also strengthen American Capital, how will you prevent it from using that strength to derail your agenda?
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May 28, 2014 17:16
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nematode antipode posted:Nationalism is bigotry hiding behind a flag. We're all human god damned beings, and serving one country to the exclusion of people elsewhere only plays into the hands of the greedy, the power-hungry, and hate-mongers. It goes both ways. I wouldn't consider my identity as a Serb nearly as important as I do now if I didn't get put under some kind of pressure due to that identity every time I interacted with an international community, IRL and online. And people who tend to talk about multiculturalism have an unfortunate tendency to be completely blind to the fact that what they see as the default human society without weird tribal crap is what most of the world considers to be those people's culture. The result is that by talking about the pointlessness of nations, you're alienating a bunch of people because you're actually saying to them "Stop being such a barbarian and accept my superior culture!"
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May 28, 2014 17:59
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thekeeshman posted:The US industrialized without strong intellectual property systems? Really? I disagree with your defense of patents, but this is a whole other debate, so I won't go into it. I'm realizing from this exchange that I misinterpreted your position as someone merely trying to combine socialism and nationalism. I see now that you're actually defending many other aspects of capitalism, so I feel like any meaningful debate between us would actually have to start from much more basic principles than those I've been arguing so far. My best bet is that you seem to be advocating for the very kind of capitalism with social policies (or social democracy) that is now being defeated by neoliberalism all around the world. The irony is that the only reason such a system was able to exist for so long in the first place (and only in imperialist nations) is because capital was forced into this compromise given the historical threat of actual existing socialism and a strong international worker's movement. thekeeshman posted:It wouldn't, it would prevent the companies from keeping their factories in America and exploiting third world labor at the same time. In a restricted-immigration situation companies can either stay in developed countries and pay higher labor costs or they can outsource to save on labor but shoulder the costs and risks that come with it. In our hypothetical socialist America, the companies would be unable to exploit third world labour while keeping their factories in America precisely because the socialist american government would be using the state as a means of putting pressure on capital and in order to prevent such exploitation in America. I'm talking about granting citizenship with full rights, not importing cheap migrant labour for the benefit of capital. thekeeshman posted:In the short to medium term, this will cause pain and disruption to American workers, so how do you convince them to sacrifice their interests in the name of international solidarity? It will also strengthen American Capital, how will you prevent it from using that strength to derail your agenda? There are many possible strategies, but again, in our hypothetical socialist America, the state could have a policy of seizing and collectivizing the assets of American capitalists who try to pull something like this by outsourcing. In this case having become the new owners of the factory, the American workers would in fact be better off, and American capital would be weakened or at least not strengthened as much. Note that this is the kind of action that a not-superpower country is typically heavily punished for by international capital (through trade sanctions or military intervention). This is precisely why there is a need for leftists around the world to put the interests of their fellow workers in America before those of the local capitalists in their own nation, just as our imaginary socialist Americans put the interests of Vietnamese labour before those of American capital. Without this, socialism in one country will one way or another be defeated by reaction, as we've seen historically. Bob le Moche fucked around with this message at 18:25 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 18:12
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my dad posted:It goes both ways. I wouldn't consider my identity as a Serb nearly as important as I do now if I didn't get put under some kind of pressure due to that identity every time I interacted with an international community, IRL and online. And people who tend to talk about multiculturalism have an unfortunate tendency to be completely blind to the fact that what they see as the default human society without weird tribal crap is what most of the world considers to be those people's culture. The result is that by talking about the pointlessness of nations, you're alienating a bunch of people because you're actually saying to them "Stop being such a barbarian and accept my superior culture!"
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May 28, 2014 18:14
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Building a socialist movement that relies on patriotism is just going to lead you down the path of the Second International. When, exactly, is patriotism going to be called on most strongly? During wars and during periods of economic crisis. When the first World War broke out, "socialist" parties voted for the war, signed no strike pledges, and led workers to kill other workers in the interests of capitalists! When economic crises occur, the ruling class is going to turn to patriotism to promote class collaborationism and disarm the working class. Even if you imagine that a socialist party could promote patriotism publicly without causing internal corruption of its political line, it would be put on the spot very publicly on any such occasion and would be forced to choose - openly reversing entirely on patriotism, or supporting an imperialist war, for instance - and both options would be disastrous. Socialist parties that support imperialist wars and defend the ruling class in times of crisis are not worth having, and making massive public reversals of policies can easily destroy a party; look at how the Communist Party in the US imploded when the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was announced and the CP was ordered to stop calling for a popular front against fascism. Social patriotism might seem useful if you're purely interested in social democratic gains, but it is poison for a revolutionary party.quote:Wasn't nationalism originally a force that overthrew the traditional ruling class? Nationalism (or, at least, its modern form) is a product of the bourgeois revolutions and joins liberalism as one of the cornerstones of bourgeois ideology. This served a progressive role when the bourgeoisie fought the aristocracy and for the unification of nation-states against feudal remnants, but today the bourgeoisie is the ruling class. Nationalism can still play a (limited) progressive role when it is that of oppressed nationalities (Black nationalism in the US or Palestinian nationalism, for example), but the nationalism of the dominant nationality in states is now a reactionary force. Rogue0071 fucked around with this message at 18:32 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 18:15
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Bob le Moche posted:In our hypothetical socialist America, the companies would be unable to exploit third world labour while keeping their factories in America precisely because the socialist american government would be using the state as a means of putting pressure on capital and in order to prevent such exploitation in America. I'm talking about granting citizenship with full rights, not importing cheap migrant labour for the benefit of capital. It doesn't matter whether you give immigrants citizenship or not, if you substantially increase the supply of labor in the country that will reduce wages and benefit capital. quote:There are many possible strategies, but again, in our hypothetical socialist America, the state could have a policy of seizing and collectivizing the assets of American capitalists who try to pull something like this by outsourcing. In this case having become the new owners of the factory, the American workers would in fact be better off, and American capital would be weakened or at least not strengthened as much. This might prevent one-for-one relocation of factories, but would pretty much guarantee that the US would be ruled out as the site for any new ones. Furthermore, in this day and age what good is a factory without the rest of the corporate infrastructure that supports it? If you confiscate a car factory you might be able to continue to churn out the same or similar cars to the ones it was producing when you seized it, but without an engineering and design team how will you remain in business when 5 or 10 years from now other companies are putting out new models? Without a sales and distribution system how will you sell the cars? Without a logistics team how will you ensure that your parts and raw materials arrive on time? Hell, how will you maintain and upgrade the robots that are currently doing most of the work? You can cut a factory off from its parent corporation, but in order to actually make use of it you would have to rebuild its support system. "Just give it to the workers" might work for a mine or smelter or some other supplier of basic inputs, especially since they tend to be less mobile anyway, but trying to do that with a modern factory is going to be an order of magnitude more difficult. And for that matter, how can you say that the ownership of a factory should belong solely to those working directly in it, when the labor of so many others was critical to establishing it and keeping it running? quote:Note that this is the kind of action that a not-superpower country is typically heavily punished for by international capital (through trade sanctions or military intervention). This is precisely why there is a need for leftists around the world to put the interests of their fellow workers in America before those of the local capitalists in their own nation, just as our imaginary socialist Americans put the interests of Vietnamese labour before those of American capital. So your system relies on third world peasants forgoing a chance to drag themselves out of crushing poverty to benefit American workers? On American workers giving up their current jobs and descending into poverty to benefit third world peasants? That seems like a big ask. As I said, any country in which capital is dominant enough to resist, or in which workers simply don't want to cooperate, is essentially the international equivalent of a scab. How do you deal with this? ("The workers will take control" or "Solidarity" aren't answers) I put it to you that if your system relies on literally everyone putting the collective before themselves then you will simply repeat the domestic failings of the communist economies on an international scale.
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May 28, 2014 19:00
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Rogue0071 posted:Building a socialist movement that relies on patriotism is just going to lead you down the path of the Second International. When, exactly, is patriotism going to be called on most strongly? During wars and during periods of economic crisis. When the first World War broke out, "socialist" parties voted for the war, signed no strike pledges, and led workers to kill other workers in the interests of capitalists! When economic crises occur, the ruling class is going to turn to patriotism to promote class collaborationism and disarm the working class. Even if you imagine that a socialist party could promote patriotism publicly without causing internal corruption of its political line, it would be put on the spot very publicly on any such occasion and would be forced to choose - openly reversing entirely on patriotism, or supporting an imperialist war, for instance - and both options would be disastrous. Socialist parties that support imperialist wars and defend the ruling class in times of crisis are not worth having, and making massive public reversals of policies can easily destroy a party; look at how the Communist Party in the US imploded when the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was announced and the CP was ordered to stop calling for a popular front against fascism. Social patriotism might seem useful if you're purely interested in social democratic gains, but it is poison for a revolutionary party. And since we're dealing with a surge in support for the far right, I think this is relevant.
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May 28, 2014 19:03
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thekeeshman posted:So your system relies on third world peasants forgoing a chance to drag themselves out of crushing poverty to benefit American workers? On American workers giving up their current jobs and descending into poverty to benefit third world peasants? That seems like a big ask. The very idea that third world workers benefit from outsourcing is valid only in the scenario where closed borders and international capitalism creates such a situation where they are made to be dependent on capital's whims. Once given the ability to cross borders the workers are not condemned to "forgoing a chance to drag themselves out of crushing poverty", they have more agency, and more self-determination as labourers, while capital has less control over their lives. I have no idea why anyone would try pretend in good faith that denying this right to workers is for their own good. The interests of workers coincide with the interests of capital in the same way that the interest of hostages coincide with their hostage-taker. Your ideology is one of Stockholm syndrome. The hypothetical situation you paint where the interests of capital and labour are aligned is an imaginary one that has no analogy in today's world. Nationalism encourages class collaborationism by pretending that there is such a "national" interest that unites capitalists and workers of the same nation. It is a lie. Benito Mussolini posted:We deny your internationalism. That is a luxury article which only the elevated can practise, because peoples are passionately bound to their native soil. Bob le Moche fucked around with this message at 19:41 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 19:38
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Bob le Moche posted:The very idea that third world workers benefit from outsourcing is valid only in the scenario where closed borders and international capitalism creates such a situation where they are made to be dependent on capital's whims. Once given the ability to cross borders the workers are not condemned to "forgoing a chance to drag themselves out of crushing poverty", they have more agency, and more self-determination as labourers, while capital has less control over their lives. I have no idea why anyone would try pretend in good faith that denying this right to workers is for their own good. Again, if you increase the supply of labor within a country that will drive down the wages that labor can demand. Free migration of workers would benefit developed world capitalists and the migrants while disadvantaging developed world labor. I have never, at any point in this conversation, posited a universal coincidence of interests between labor and capital, please read better and stop making assumptions about what my ideology is when yours seemingly rests on continually ignoring facts that are inconvenient to you. Besides, in your scenario factories don't move to Vietnam, and so any people who remain there will not benefit from the money and development it would bring. Outsourcing has meant that Vietnamese, in Vietnam, have access to higher wages without leaving their families or communities. Who do you think is most likely to have the education and resources to move to a completely different country? Hint: It's not the poor. You remind me of Republicans who ask indignantly why the poor of Detroit haven't just moved down to Texas where the jobs are. There are no legal barriers to doing so, and yet generally people don't, why do you think that is? And for that matter, how can you have a welfare state and unrestricted immigration? If a million migrants turned up in Belgium do you think they would be able to find jobs and the money for benefits for all of them? And do you really think that this wouldn't cause any social upheaval? You clearly enjoy ranting and handwaving away potential issues but your unwillingness to examine the consequences of the policies you advocate is bordering on the comical.
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May 28, 2014 20:06
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Bob le Moche posted:It is a lie. Sort of cribbing from Eric Blair here, but one reason UKIP is sending representatives to Brussels is because Nigel Farage knows that about people during a time in which they're concerned about their nation's sovereignty and anxieties those national characteristics are under threat, and there's no one on the left who is able to challenge him in a way that's very convincing for a lot of everyday folks. BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 20:18 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 20:08
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Omi-Polari posted:We're really down the orthodox Marxist rabbit hole here. Without an appeal to patriotism during the Second World War, where would you have made it? And the Soviet-aligned communist parties got with the program and did it after their alliance with Hitler collapsed. I would put it like Orwell: "Obviously the snobbishness and political ignorance of people like airmen and naval officers will be a very great difficulty. But without those airmen, destroyer commanders, etc. etc. we could not survive for a week. The only approach to them is through their patriotism. An intelligent Socialist movement will use their patriotism, instead of merely insulting it, as hitherto." The party my party descends from, the (US) SWP, did not adopt social patriotism during the Second World War, it adopted the proletarian military policy. The SWP survived the war, despite state repression and initial unpopularity, and survived the subsequent Red Scare and wave of repression. The Communist Party did adopt social patriotism, and was subsequently effectively smashed by McCarthyism and the Korean War. The war patriotism did not save the CP from being a target of repression as soon as the immediate need for its support had passed, and neither did it prepare workers and its members for the repression (in fact, it disarmed them by giving full and unconditional support to the state during the war and supporting the Smith Act which was later used against the CP!) or any subsequent conflict. Orwell's quote is all well and good, but as we saw in Russia, even with an extremely unfavorable set of class forces (where the proletariat comprised a small minority in both the country and the army), a socialist revolution can win. The Reds did not win the civil war by appealing to the patriotism of reactionary officers. Further, in Spain during the Civil War, where the government did try such an appeal, it failed utterly. Not only were the officers not won over, but the government sacrificed the possibility of appealing to the peasants on a class basis in Franco's army as part of its focus on claiming legitimacy as a bourgeois government and that patriots must defend it as the legitimate government. Rogue0071 fucked around with this message at 20:28 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 20:16
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Rogue0071 posted:The party my party descends from, the SWP, did not adopt social patriotism during the Second World War, it adopted the proletarian military policy. The SWP survived the war, despite state repression and initial unpopularity, and survived the subsequent Red Scare and wave of repression. The Communist Party did adopt social patriotism, and was subsequently effectively smashed by McCarthyism and the Korean War. The war patriotism did not save the CP from being a target of repression as soon as the immediate need for its support had passed, and neither did it prepare workers and its members for the repression (in fact, it disarmed them by giving full and unconditional support to the state during the war and supporting the Smith Act which was later used against the CP!) or any subsequent conflict. http://books.google.com/books?id=bD...fficers&f=false BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 20:48 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 20:32
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Omi-Polari posted:I'm guessing you're in the ISO. Well I'm reading about proletarian militarism now and I came across this: "The victory of the imperialists of Great Britain and France would be not less frightful for the ultimate fate of mankind than that of Hitler and Mussolini." Which is just insanely, insanely wrong. On Spain: I'd just point out that appealing to international workers solidarity didn't fare much better. How many British and American volunteers signed up to fight in Spain on that basis compared to the numbers who signed up to defend their nations during World War II? And the Red Army didn't appeal to Russian patriotism during the civil war? I think that's a pretty dubious claim. International solidarity has always been a weaker force compared to nationalism. I'm in Socialist Action. I agree in hindsight it was a mistake to equate a democratic imperialist victory with a fascist victory, but the victory of democratic imperialism did result in a great deal of incredibly awful things. The point that either outcome of those two is a terrible one stands, even if, as you note, making a direct equality between them is hyperbolic. On the Spain question, it is hardly fair to directly compare the number of International Brigade volunteers to the number of WW2 volunteers. IB volunteers had to raise money within their union or party or pay their own way on a trip to Spain, sneak across the border (often by hiking over the Pyrenees), go against a great deal of influential organizations (particularly the Catholic church and their own goverments) opposing the IBs, received low pay, had extremely poor and outdated gear, and faced state surveillance and sometimes punishment on their return. In that context, the fact that 35-45,000 people went to Spain to assist in some way is remarkable, to say nothing of other efforts like donations. Neither are the IBs the only example of international solidarity being greatly useful in revolutions; during the Russian civil war the efforts of workers in France and Britain helped force those governments to withdraw their troops, and workers all over the world participated in collections to aid the Soviet Republic. While I'm sure one could find examples of patriotic Red propaganda, the political line of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet government was staunchly internationalist throughout the entire war and the Bolsheviks did things like intentionally delaying the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk talks to make Germany have to show its willingness to attack the Soviet Republic, recognizing that they would lose additional territory but judging it worth it because of the effect that would have on advancing a revolution in Germany. Many of the pre-revolution officers who did fight for the Reds were compelled to do so. Certainly, when the level of political consciousness of workers is low, as it is today and has often been in the past, nationalism can be more powerful than internationalism. Part of building a proletarian revolution, however, is building the consciousness of workers; if we simply went by what was easiest based on conditions now we'd be running primaries in the Democratic Party rather than building independent forces or seeking a revolution at all. Rogue0071 fucked around with this message at 20:54 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 20:48
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SickZip posted:It's stunningly consistent that left parties full of nice rhetoric suddenly all turn into the same thing once they get a bit of power. The left's tendency to sell out and betray the workers has escalated to an outright pathology. How many times does it have to happen before you realize something is fundamentally wrong? It's not difficult to understand. 98% of the time, the politician who spends more money on the election, wins. As a politician seeking office, you quickly realize that you either take care of the wealthy donors or you get "opposed" and defeated. Leftists can talk all they want, but if they act against their donor's interests, then their political career is over. Money talks, money rules, plebes can die in the streets. Plebes can't really even mass protest anymore with http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System et al becoming mainstream.
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May 28, 2014 21:21
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[quote="rudatron" post="430240778"] The left ultimately gets nothing from identitarians, it's probably time to part ways and let them go on their own. Oh look, a bunch of whities want to rationalize kicking the ladder out from behind them once they reach their glorious socialist utopia. I smell fascism afoot. Oh yeah, lets just ignore "insert marginalized minority here" in the interest of class solidarity. There's no way that can go wrong at all!
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May 28, 2014 21:28
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Kristov posted:[quote="rudatron" post="430240778"] Minorities make up the new-right in Europe?
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May 28, 2014 21:29
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Nonsense posted:Minorities make up the new-right in Europe? Oh my bad. Was late to respond and thought 'identitarian' was some kind of fancy made up word for wjat you would consider a "sjw". Carry on.
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May 28, 2014 21:34
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Kristov posted:Oh my bad. Was late to respond and thought 'identitarian' was some kind of fancy made up word for wjat you would consider a "sjw". Carry on. You weren't misreading, that's what people were talking about. They weren't saying that nothing should be done about racism/patriarchy, but that it is secondary to economic concerns. This is a cause of tension between leftists with a long pedigree and I think it's useless from a practical point of view to keep insisting on every problem in society being economically determined, even if you believe that wholeheartedly. If SJWs alienate others or have an unsophisticated analysis of economics, I understand it is annoying, but demanding that they subordinate identity politics to economic concerns is also going to alienate a lot of potential allies. I don't mean just the people we think of as hardcore SJWs, but also ordinary people who are simply more interested in issues like gay rights or anti-racism. Like it or not, these people comprise the majority of the modern left and going up to them and saying "ignore this stuff and smash capitalism, it will solve all the problems anyway" is as unhelpful as a SJW going up to a labourer who just called his boss a oval office and telling him to check his male privilege. It should be possible to articulate the fact that the causes are linked without haughtily talking over one another.
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May 28, 2014 21:57
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thekeeshman posted:Again, if you increase the supply of labor within a country that will drive down the wages that labor can demand. Free migration of workers would benefit developed world capitalists and the migrants while disadvantaging developed world labor. I have never, at any point in this conversation, posited a universal coincidence of interests between labor and capital, please read better and stop making assumptions about what my ideology is when yours seemingly rests on continually ignoring facts that are inconvenient to you. I would like to know what the point you're trying to make is then, because I'm genuinely interested and pretty tired of trying to guess here. Under capitalism, increasing the supply of labour will drive down the wages that labour can demand, but under an economy where capital no longer dictates the terms, there is a multitude of possible solutions to the problem. All your arguments so far rely on the a priori assumption that capital is free to do as it wants and should be accommodated at all costs for fear of being punished by its response. This is the world we live in today, the purpose of revolution is to change this, to use the machinery of the state in order to take control of capital for the workers. thekeeshman posted:Besides, in your scenario factories don't move to Vietnam, and so any people who remain there will not benefit from the money and development it would bring. Outsourcing has meant that Vietnamese, in Vietnam, have access to higher wages without leaving their families or communities. Who do you think is most likely to have the education and resources to move to a completely different country? Hint: It's not the poor. You remind me of Republicans who ask indignantly why the poor of Detroit haven't just moved down to Texas where the jobs are. There are no legal barriers to doing so, and yet generally people don't, why do you think that is? Because of all the reasons you are implying, obviously. I disagree that the poor of Detroit would be better off if the Texan border was closed to them, however. If outsourcing and the free flow of international capital is such a good deal for the workers of the third world then why are we looking at a history where so many non-western countries including Vietnam have attempted socialist revolution? What's with those third world workers and all the anti-imperialism? Shouldn't they be grateful that western capitalists are investing so much in their nation's development? Why did the Viet Cong have secret agreements with African-American marines not to fire upon each other if the notion of international proletarian solidarity coming before national interests means nothing and is but an unrealistic utopia? thekeeshman posted:And for that matter, how can you have a welfare state and unrestricted immigration? If a million migrants turned up in Belgium do you think they would be able to find jobs and the money for benefits for all of them? And do you really think that this wouldn't cause any social upheaval? You clearly enjoy ranting and handwaving away potential issues but your unwillingness to examine the consequences of the policies you advocate is bordering on the comical. Nobody who has given any thought to the question claims that the transition from capitalism to socialism can happen without social upheaval. I am perfectly aware that implementing significant welfare state and open immigration policies in a mixed capitalist economy would be disastrous by any bourgeois economic metrics. This is what I'm after: drawing out the contradictions between capitalism and the fulfilment of basic human needs to their breaking point, so that society can move beyond it. It's about putting pressure on capital in order to weaken and eventually to strangle it. The wealth that Belgium enjoys today and that of other European countries has been extracted from the colonialist exploitation of non-Europeans. As far as I'm concerned Belgian-born citizens have no more valid a claim to it than anyone else. It's not to me that you need to justify why it's so very important to defend Belgium's precious borders and GDP, it's to the people being denied immigration from Congo. Bob le Moche fucked around with this message at 22:12 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 22:07
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Most of the arguments in favour of nationalism or of abandoning identity issues in this thread ultimately boil down to a desire to kick down the ladder. Whatever first-world country you live in there are already immigrants, Roma, Aboriginals, or slave-descended people in it, stealing the precious welfare of true patriots. They are the most vulnerable members of society, the ones that have the least to lose and are the most natural constituency of a real leftist movement, and they don't give a poo poo about your "nation" in the least. They often despise it. Are they wrong? What should we do? Tell them to behave? Kick them out?
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May 28, 2014 22:10
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You can't really surprised at a point that the European working class isn't going to be that interested in that story though. You can give them a plate of identity politics, austerity and labor mobility and they will most likely continue going far-right because the far-right is their only out. It is both an economic tug of war and a cultural one, so the far-left/left is going to have to surrender large parts of their voting bloc if they want to retain identity politics and be pro-labor mobility.
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May 28, 2014 22:42
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| # ? May 23, 2024 19:09 |
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Ardennes posted:You can't really surprised at a point that the European working class isn't going to be that interested in that story though. You can give them a plate of identity politics, austerity and labor mobility and they will most likely continue going far-right because the far-right is their only out. Identity politics is a funny euphanism for 'visible minorities are not second class citizens' don't ya think? Compromising that in the name of political expediency is a great way for fascism to root. And once that pain train gets rolling you better run or get ready for a fight.
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May 28, 2014 22:57
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