There is a spectrum haunting C-SPAM. I, on the contrary,

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > There is a spectrum haunting C-SPAM. I, on the contrary,

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Grand Prize Winner: Feb 19, 2007

safely sodomized posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m91zBt94Ll0

Can't view on phone, is that the hipster five year plan video?

# ? Sep 7, 2017 09:58

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# ? May 19, 2024 08:07

BrainParasite: Jan 24, 2003

Can anybody suggest a good, even handed bio of Mao?

# ? Sep 7, 2017 12:19

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

BrainParasite posted:

Can anybody suggest a good, even handed bio of Mao?

# ? Sep 7, 2017 13:11

Baloogan: Dec 5, 2004; Fun Shoe

safely sodomized posted:

this entirely explains the problems of today

# ? Sep 7, 2017 13:18

Karl Barks: Jan 21, 1981

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Maoism is distinct from other forms of Marxism because it centralizes the peasantry as the primary revolutionary agents. This was essential for a place like China, where there was a tiny industrial proletariat and therefore not enough support to form a revolutionary vanguard in a traditional Leninist sense. The Bolsheviks did cement an alliance between the peasantry and proletariat which cemented their power, but the proletariat was always central to Leninist praxis because the proles were all literate and in the best position to organize. From its emphasis on the peasantry, Maoism advocates a practice of organizing rural people into a guerilla force to wage peoples' war. Once Maoist cadres control the countryside, then they can overwhelm or starve out the cities and force the ruling classes to surrender.

M3W takes Maoism and puts some stank on it by centralizing the rural characteristics of the Third World in the development of a global peoples' war. By uniting the laboring classes of the Third World to wage global war on the First World, the internationalist nature of exploitation under global capitalism can be strangled and the First World will be forced to capitulate to a Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of Oppressed Nations.

Mao did define the exploitation between the Fiirst and Third worlds in his analysis, but it wasn't central to his ideology. Maoism is primarily focused on achieving national liberation movements, because the liberation of the nation's oppressed laborers is always the immediately pressing goal. M3W being internationalist sounds dialectically correct, but it lacks any practical roadmap to actually realizing a JDPON. Actually existing Maoists have enough problems dealing with the reactionary authorities in their own countries, let alone trying to think about waging a genocidal global peoples' war against the highly sophisticated nuclear armed First World.

IMO, global communism isn't really possible without a revolution in the First World, preferably in the United States itself. There's a big fat chance of that ever happening I know, especially because of the development of a massive labor aristocracy. However, the excessive rapacity of neoliberalism in seeking to guarantee the rate of profit, is also slowly eroding the labor aristocracy as a distinct element in First World countries. Political development within the First World is now trending towards either socialism or fascism as the rate of profit continues to inevitably decline. We're entering a historical phase in which it is a better time than ever to agitate the overthrow of capitalism within the very centers of imperialist power - the United States, UK, and the EU. If just the USA could be transformed into a communist power, then the global balance shifts in favor of the world's workers, and the necessity of a genocidal global war to overthrow the First World is rendered moot.

Then again, the imbalance of power between the state and its people has only become even greater since Lenin's time, and the prospect of a vanguardist party being able to simply seize the centers of power and take the reigns of state aren't realistic. State power has become more decentralized - increasingly networked. The existence of a "capital" is a mere bureaucratic convenience, and not a practical necessity of power projection. To achieve revolution in the First World, we'll need a praxis that is neither Leninist or Maoist, but something new. Something that can advance a communist political program within our own historical context.

Good post

# ? Sep 7, 2017 14:13

Pener Kropoopkin: Jan 30, 2013

# ? Sep 7, 2017 17:01

Dreddout: Oct 1, 2015; You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Could you explain the practical difference between the rural peasantry and urban proletariat to me?

In Capital Marx uses the terms "agricultural proletariat" and "urban proletariat". I know the classic image of a people is a dude in a boiler suit working 18 hours a day, but is there really a class distinction or conflict
between urban proles and rural plebs?

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

That's some incredibly high level math for what I assume is a junior high Poli-Sci course run by a hippy teacher!

# ? Sep 7, 2017 21:06

Pener Kropoopkin: Jan 30, 2013

Dreddout posted:

Could you explain the practical difference between the rural peasantry and urban proletariat to me?

In Capital Marx uses the terms "agricultural proletariat" and "urban proletariat". I know the classic image of a people is a dude in a boiler suit working 18 hours a day, but is there really a class distinction or conflict
between urban proles and rural plebs?

There isn't a class conflict no, but it's very common for there to be class resentments since urban workers look down on peasants for being illiterate bumpkins, and peasants resent city folk because they eat all the food and then treat country folks like dirt.

The literacy of the two groups is the most important distinction from a practical perspective, because the ability of the urban proletariat to read and acquire class consciousness makes them the most likely to act as revolutionary agents. Illiterate or semi-literate peasants are much easier to keep in a state of false consciousness through repetitions of tradition. Mao overcame this problem by framing his ideology in vernacular terms. He spoke in language that anybody could understand. That's why the Little Red Book is literally titled "Quotations from Chairman Mao," they're meant to be read to illiterate peasants by a literate cadre so that even the people of the countryside can acquire Mao Zedong Thought.

In terms of property and exploitation, the "rural proletariat" is a bit more complicated than the urban one. It's possible in many cases for peasants to also be small landholders who exploit their fellow peasants by loaning seeds or tools at high prices. But the great bulk of the peasantry is typically landless or tenant farmers, who are in thrall to the nobility in Russia and the landed gentry in China. Unless they themselves own their own property, the peasantry is exploited by the aristocracy. Urban proles on the other hand, do not own any productive property. If they come into enough capital to say, own a store or start their own business then they would transform into a different class altogether - but the proletariat as a whole survives by selling their labor to capitalists.

At this point I also need to point out that, even though Maoism placed the peasantry at the center of its revolutionary praxis, the urban proles were the primary beneficiaries of Maoist China. The CCP, like any other communist regime, was immediately focused on developing the industrial capacities of the country so that it could achieve a relative parity with the imperialist powers. That meant the peasantry were often neglected in terms of distribution in grains and development plans. The wealth of the country primarily flowed into the industrial centers, where the urban workers were always well clothed and fed. Once China was industrialized enough so that agriculture could begin to be mechanized, and food production exploded - then starvation became a thing of the past, but the peasantry were always much poorer than the urban proles.

The existential threat of invasion from imperialist powers will always skew the development agenda of any communist state, which needs to maintain a military parity that will allow it to guarantee its own independence. This is also why a First World revolution is necessary, in order to dwarf reactionary powers around the globe and realize greater social utility from production. We are already the technologically sophisticated industrial powers of the world. Unlike Russia and China, we would not feel compelled to play a game of catch-up in order to realize a development goal that has to neglect the margins of society. We're already developed.. The productive forces of the Global North are waiting to be seized and repurposed towards humanity's greatest utility.

# ? Sep 7, 2017 22:01

GoluboiOgon: Aug 19, 2017; by Nyc_Tattoo

Dreddout posted:

Could you explain the practical difference between the rural peasantry and urban proletariat to me?

In Capital Marx uses the terms "agricultural proletariat" and "urban proletariat". I know the classic image of a people is a dude in a boiler suit working 18 hours a day, but is there really a class distinction or conflict
between urban proles and rural plebs?

That's some incredibly high level math for what I assume is a junior high Poli-Sci course run by a hippy teacher!

I know only a little about Maoism, but I'm pretty sure that this distinction comes from Russian history. In Russia during WWI, the switch to a military economy completely destroyed the civilian economy. Money was increasingly worthless, and there was nothing to buy as most production of essential manufactured goods like clothes and iron tools were all sold to the army. In response, peasants stopped selling food, hoarding it for next winter or using it to fatten livestock. This led to starvation in the cities. The revolution only heightened the breakdown of the economy. Between the forcible confiscation of War Communism and the profiteering of NEP, there was always a tension in Soviet Russia between policies that favored the industrial workers and those that favored peasants. Collectivization under Stalin was what really solved this issue at the expense of the peasantry. Like all Russian history, this is best summed up with a joke:

Q: What is it called when there is food in the cites and none in the country?
A: A left wing, Trotskiite deviation.
Q: What is it called when there is no food in the cities and none in the country?
A: A right wing, Bukharinite deviation.
Q: What is it called when there is no food in the cities and no food in the country?
A: The correct application of the party line.
Q: What is it called when there is food in the cities and food in the country?
A: The horrors of capitalism.

# ? Sep 7, 2017 22:30

namesake: Jun 19, 2006; "When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."

Nah Pener has it right, peasant and proletariat are two distinct exploited groups. Peasants are bound to the land that they work and to the owners of that land by contract. The rural proletariat is the workforce which works in the fields for wages, it has no other direct link to the land that they work on or anyone beyond who pays them. There is an accord between these groups in class struggle if the right arguments are made but they aren't directly allies otherwise because they benefit from different things; inversely for the price of food or lodging (because the peasant would potentially rent to the proletariat) for instance.

On M3W, if you're in the first world just be strongly anti-imperialist (because it's the right thing to be and it's what the M3Wist would want anyway) and at least have a go at turning your nation to socialism.

namesake fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Sep 7, 2017

# ? Sep 7, 2017 22:45

Typo: Aug 19, 2009; Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

namesake posted:

A powerful figure with executive and legislative authority isn't necessarily the cause of degeneration, although it obviously can help it along. A socialist state fails when it loses accountability to the workers meaning that policy is created and implemented by the authority on the people rather than allowing new tendencies and individuals to enter and reshape it. The civil war forced the Bolsheviks to operate on top down military logic which they couldn't shake off when they had won and didn't restore the necessary political freedoms to the Soviets after they had won meaning the leadership turned to factionalism rather than open democracy to settle their disagreements.

Assuming any significant revolution will face civil war or the likely threat of invasion it would seem that the concept of loyal criticism of the current arrangement of things should be properly protected at all times because it's very unlikely to be permitted after the fact.

the bolsheviks were literally always a top-down military logic organization. Before they seized power in 1917 they were something between a group of underground coupsters conspiring to seize the power of the state and a terrorist group. that's what made them different from the Mensheviks or the ~~socialist revolutionaries~~. The original split between the bolsheviks and the mensheviks was over the fact that the mensheviks wanted a much broader party membership list whereas lenin wanted a smaller, more disciplined and centralized party. Even the Soviets were just a mean to power for Lenin. It wasn't the civil war which "corrupted" the Bolsheviks: centralizing absolute power of the state within the vanguard party was always the goal from the get go.

It makes a lot of sense once you read about the various Russian revolutionary movements of the late 19th-early 20th century. One of the things which took root among many revolutionaries was a disgust at the peasantry for not being revolutionary enough or caring enough about their ideas and therefore only small groups of properly educated revolutionaries are reliable and thus power must be invested in that group. that was the idea of the vanguard right there.

Typo fucked around with this message at 23:30 on Sep 7, 2017

# ? Sep 7, 2017 23:11

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

sr's were way more associated with terrorism than the bolsheviks lol

# ? Sep 7, 2017 23:23

Typo: Aug 19, 2009; Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

GalacticAcid posted:

sr's were way more associated with terrorism than the bolsheviks lol

this is actually true

# ? Sep 7, 2017 23:28

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

The Left SRs were like 90% literal terrorists from the struggles back in 1907

# ? Sep 7, 2017 23:33

Darkman Fanpage: Jul 4, 2012

Baloogan posted:

this entirely explains the problems of today

go back to your nerd game

# ? Sep 8, 2017 05:27

Darkman Fanpage: Jul 4, 2012

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

billy is good

# ? Sep 8, 2017 05:28

1994 Toyota Celica: Sep 11, 2008; by Nyc_Tattoo

billy gets handies from milktoast's sister behind the bleachers after school, while they smoke weed

# ? Sep 8, 2017 05:35

Dreddout: Oct 1, 2015; You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Billy is personally responsible for Lowtax getting calls from the FBI

# ? Sep 8, 2017 05:43

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

It's doubtful whether or not the Bolshevisk would have survived until the revolution, if they had not been a top-down organization though. The better organized and disciplined force is going to win 9 times out of 10, and there's a reason the Bolsheviks actually won.

I can agree that a third world revolution effectively can't work in this world of technological power disparities, necessitating unrest in the first. But there are some real problems with that actually happening, and particularly in the US:

Power is more and more being divested from the government and placed in the hands of private interests. When everything that the government does is simply outsourced, the utility of leftists achieving any state power is completely undone - at worst it means the capitalists simply move to another friendly country, and take all that capital and talent with them. E.g. - It's the Boeing corporation and Lockheed Martin corporation that have the advanced military technology, not the US Air Force, which simply buys it.
There isn't a real, proven, replacement model for a socialist economy, and simply making the promise of 'well it will work this time' isn't going to cut it. The shadow the Soviet Union casts is long, and while I think Marxism has proven itself to be absolutely correct in it's criticisms of capitalism, if you don't have an alternative system without those contradictions, you're wasting your breath. Dismissing the real challenge of drawing up a 'schematic of the future economy', or suggesting that it can/should be done after power has been achieved, is acting like an entitled child, who wants power without any kind of responsibility. Ergo, domestic support in any country is going to be low.
Even if you had the previous 2 problems solved, dumb liberals still prefer fascists to socialists, and will hand them everything.

So, the probability of the kind of change necessary, within any of our lifetimes (if we're being honest), is effectively 0%.

On the flip side, we're also running out of time - issues of intellectual, environmental, bio-genetic commons, and the possibility of capital-controlled Artificial Intelligence, is only really going to make things worse, and some more drastically than others.

# ? Sep 8, 2017 05:47

Typo: Aug 19, 2009; Chernigov Military Aviation Lyceum
The Fighting Slowpokes

rudatron posted:

It's doubtful whether or not the Bolshevisk would have survived until the revolution, if they had not been a top-down organization though. The better organized and disciplined force is going to win 9 times out of 10, and there's a reason the Bolsheviks actually won.

Absolutely, whether this is good or bad though is up for debate

# ? Sep 8, 2017 06:21

Pener Kropoopkin: Jan 30, 2013

rudatron posted:

So, the probability of the kind of change necessary, within any of our lifetimes (if we're being honest), is effectively 0%.

The probability of a JDPON putting all of us First World labor aristocrats into labor camps is also effectively 0%. So might as well cash in as a liberal and do enough drugs until we drown in the global toilet of our industrial refuse.

# ? Sep 8, 2017 06:52

R. Guyovich: Dec 25, 1991

Typo posted:

Absolutely, whether this is good or bad though is up for debate

good av

# ? Sep 8, 2017 07:11

Top City Homo: Oct 15, 2014; Ramrod XTreme

lancemantis posted:

you can see the same thing in action in Belarus with the "reforms" under Lukashenko (and really a lot of post-soviet countries): they changed the constitution to give the president (him) a bunch of power, and changed the parliamentary powers and structure; the parliament basically makes into law what he tells them (when its not in his explicit power to do so).

so you have all these democratic institutions that give the appearance of democracy, but its really a dictatorship in function

Belarus is a well run country because Lukashenko was able to maintain Soviet era policies and neutralized parliamentary bullshit which was influenced by US financed nationalistic saboteurs

# ? Sep 8, 2017 07:19

Impermanent: Apr 1, 2010

Despair at the conditions of the future is the domain of the bourgeoise, comrade.

# ? Sep 8, 2017 07:42

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

I don't mean to excuse m3w, because all the factors i outline are just as prevalent in the 3rd world as the first, with of course the addition of new difficulties. M3W in general fetishizes the third world as a kind of escapism, a way of ironically 'out sourcing' the goal of achieving class consciousness, like how foxconn out-sources iphone assembly. But if you actually look at the political situation, especially with people like Modi and Erdogan, there's not exactly a lot of hope.

Nor am I suggesting inaction, because that doesn't work either. The greatest delusion is thinking things will go on as they are, and those who ignore politics will find that politics doesn't ignore them. Eventually, things are gonna break.

I'm just trying to be realistic, making projections from what I see. And I don't see a good path.

# ? Sep 8, 2017 08:39

Pener Kropoopkin: Jan 30, 2013

rudatron posted:

I don't mean to excuse m3w, because all the factors i outline are just as prevalent in the 3rd world as the first, with of course the addition of new difficulties. M3W in general fetishizes the third world as a kind of escapism, a way of ironically 'out sourcing' the goal of achieving class consciousness, like how foxconn out-sources iphone assembly. But if you actually look at the political situation, especially with people like Modi and Erdogan, there's not exactly a lot of hope.

Nor am I suggesting inaction, because that doesn't work either. The greatest delusion is thinking things will go on as they are, and those who ignore politics will find that politics doesn't ignore them. Eventually, things are gonna break.

I'm just trying to be realistic, making projections from what I see. And I don't see a good path.

i.e., you're saying a bunch of poo poo we already know and contributing nothing productive

# ? Sep 8, 2017 08:52

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

I like to talk about stuff. Do you like stuff? Feel free to also talk about stuff.

# ? Sep 8, 2017 08:55

Pener Kropoopkin: Jan 30, 2013

rudatron posted:

I like to talk about stuff. Do you like stuff? Feel free to also talk about stuff.

Me (super buff, deep manly bass voice, amazing posture): to realize communism a revolution in the First World will be necessary.

You (scrawny, high pitched voice cracking as if from puberty, hunched over so much you practically have a hump): UHH BASED ON MY PROJECTIONS USING CALCULATIONS FROM COLLECTED DATA THE PROBABILITY OF REVOLUTION IS ROUGHLY 0%

# ? Sep 8, 2017 09:06

Autism Sneaks: Nov 21, 2016

rudatron posted:

I like to talk

you sure do

# ? Sep 8, 2017 09:18

Grand Prize Winner: Feb 19, 2007

me (slowly falling off barstool, slurring speech in comradely fashion): what's the best praxis when you're ~~seven~~ several beers in?

# ? Sep 8, 2017 09:21

rudatron: May 31, 2011; by Fluffdaddy

Pener, what exactly are you upset over?

# ? Sep 8, 2017 09:24

Jewel Repetition: Dec 24, 2012; Ask me about Briar Rose and Chicken Chaser.

rudatron posted:

Pener, what exactly are you upset over?

Someone said decossackization to him

# ? Sep 8, 2017 09:26

Pener Kropoopkin: Jan 30, 2013

Jeb! Repetition posted:

Someone said decossackization to him

boy you really don't know me at all :mrgw:

# ? Sep 8, 2017 11:46

a primate: Jun 2, 2010

pessimism and ironic optimism are very lf

e: also, rudatron is right, at least in the near future

# ? Sep 8, 2017 12:50

Rated PG-34: Jul 1, 2004

well all revolutions were impossible before they happened and inevitable afterwards and blah di blah

# ? Sep 8, 2017 15:57

Normie Chomsky: Apr 10, 2008

Rated PG-34 posted:

well all revolutions were impossible before they happened and inevitable afterwards and blah di blah

actually, I think you will find - based on historical precedents and my own data analysis published in the zine Solidarity Today, Not Tomorrow - that in fact, this is not realistic of a statement due to..

*frantically skims notes* the, ah yes, Asiatic mode of production

# ? Sep 8, 2017 16:01

jarofpiss: May 16, 2009

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

To achieve revolution in the First World, we'll need a praxis that is neither Leninist or Maoist, but something new. Something that can advance a communist political program within our own historical context.

welcum to the DSA

# ? Sep 8, 2017 16:03

Dreddout: Oct 1, 2015; You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Embrace Fentontist thought or die with your Lenin!

Cops of the world, Unite!

# ? Sep 8, 2017 16:41

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

Toward Carceral Socialism

# ? Sep 8, 2017 17:25

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# ? May 19, 2024 08:07

GoluboiOgon: Aug 19, 2017; by Nyc_Tattoo

The 1905 revolution was started by a police spy, so maybe cops are the vanguard of the proletariat?

# ? Sep 8, 2017 17:29

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > There is a spectrum haunting C-SPAM. I, on the contrary,

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