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

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Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Constantly LARPing posted:

Apparently state theory is making a come back in Marxist intellectual circles, so you might be on to something. Don�t ask me anything about it though, I�m still trying to understand the transition question, so I�m like twenty years behind the world at this point.

the first big tell for me was a great book i read a while ago laying out western leftist perspective on the soviet union, and how one of the prevailing theories was that it wasn't a socialist state... it was a Bureaucratic Collectivist state. what does that mean? well, rather than the workers running things via the mechanism of a state, the state itself has slipped its leash and is now running wild! then you had the guys patiently explaining that actually, the ussr was simply an example of asiatic despotism,

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRXvQuE9xO4

There was this recent video about Marx's views on "statism". The main take-aways I got from it was:

* The popular conception of "socialism" as this thing where political and economic power is centered on a state, as controlled by the workers, that will undergo the changes needed to transition into communism (which is state-less), is not actually that. Marx considered socialism and communism as interchangeable terms, ergo socialism was already supposed to be the class-less, state-less thing, and instead what we think of as "socialism" is actually the "period of transition".

* Further, the programme that Marx laid out in the Communist Manifesto:

isn't supposed to BE communism (perhaps this is more obvious than the prior point?), but rather is just the first steps of the "period of transition", as a means of reconfiguring political and economic power such that the workers can retain power, can establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, on the path to communism.

* Insofar as Lenin shared Marx's views on this, and insofar as the USSR never achieved communism (nor did they achieve socialism, per it being synonymous with communism), they still called themselves socialist/communist regardless, as a declaration of principles and as a way of explicitly distinguishing themselves from the rest of the capitalist nations, even if they arguably only ever... languished in the period of transition.

i don't really buy this at all and i think lenin pretty clearly laid out what marx and engels's view on states was in s&r. it may well be true that marx used varying or even inconsistent language but he definitely DID describe A) a transitionary period in which commodities are produced for their use value rather than their exchange value by people who are paid in proportion to the useful labor they perform and B) an idyllic post-state endgame with all held in common

Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Apr 29, 2020

# ? Apr 29, 2020 08:56

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# ? May 24, 2024 08:05

Kurnugia: Sep 2, 2014; by Nyc_Tattoo

too bad lenin had no idea how to make the transition happen after the centralization of power to the state. and then stalin did the whole "the answer is force you silly beans" thing

# ? Apr 29, 2020 09:45

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Ferrinus posted:

he definitely DID describe A) a transitionary period in which commodities are produced for their use value rather than their exchange value by people who are paid in proportion to the useful labor they perform and B) an idyllic post-state endgame with all held in common

yeah, I'm saying that according to the argument the video makes, A. is the "period of transition", and B. is "communism" and/or "socialism"

as opposed to thinking that A. is socialism as seperate-and-distinct from communism, and B. is communism

# ? Apr 29, 2020 09:56

megalodong: Mar 11, 2008

https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=_1K6AAAAIAAJ posted:

By 1888, the term 'socialism' was in general use among Marxists, who had dropped 'communism', now considered an old fashioned term meaning the same as 'socialism' ...

At the turn of the century, Marxists called themselves socialists ...

The definition of socialism and communism as successive stages was introduced into Marxist theory by Lenin in 1917 ... the new distinction was helpful to Lenin in defending his party against the traditional Marxist criticism that Russia was too backward for a socialist revolution.

https://archive.org/details/keywordsvocabula00willrich/page/289 posted:

The decisive distinction between socialist and communist, as in one sense these terms are now ordinarily used, came with the renaming, in 1918, of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) as the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

From that time on, a distinction of socialist from communist, often with supporting definitions such as social democrat or democratic socialist, became widely current, although it is significant that all communist parties, in line with earlier usage, continued to describe themselves as socialist and dedicated to socialism

anyway, Critique of the Gotha Programme is good and should be read. Under modern usage, what Marx calls "low communism" there is what we would call "socialism" nowadays (thanks to Lenin)

# ? Apr 29, 2020 10:00

uncop: Oct 23, 2010

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRXvQuE9xO4

There was this recent video about Marx's views on "statism". The main take-aways I got from it was:

* The popular conception of "socialism" as this thing where political and economic power is centered on a state, as controlled by the workers, that will undergo the changes needed to transition into communism (which is state-less), is not actually that. Marx considered socialism and communism as interchangeable terms, ergo socialism was already supposed to be the class-less, state-less thing, and instead what we think of as "socialism" is actually the "period of transition".

* Further, the programme that Marx laid out in the Communist Manifesto:

isn't supposed to BE communism (perhaps this is more obvious than the prior point?), but rather is just the first steps of the "period of transition", as a means of reconfiguring political and economic power such that the workers can retain power, can establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, on the path to communism.

* Insofar as Lenin shared Marx's views on this, and insofar as the USSR never achieved communism (nor did they achieve socialism, per it being synonymous with communism), they still called themselves socialist/communist regardless, as a declaration of principles and as a way of explicitly distinguishing themselves from the rest of the capitalist nations, even if they arguably only ever... languished in the period of transition.

The video was mostly good, but I think it was a mistake to expand the evaluation to Lenin but refuse to take MLs seriously in any way. Libsocs immediately criticised the video for inconsistency on the fact that Lenin in action was a proto-ML and so if MLs are assumed to be dishonest counterrevolutionaries, Lenin shouldn't be treated as a respectable icon and source either. And they were right!

Since it went there, the video didn't pay enough attention to the fact that socialism was used to refer to both the lower stage of communism and the movement to establish it (i.e. the transitional period). The popularization of the idea that the USSR had reached socialism was a product of a declaration made in the heat of the moment that Stalin&co. didn't have the guts to either take back or engage in open debate about whether USSR's experiment had proven Marx&Lenin wrong on the issue, which was part of setting the stage for mainstream ML becoming to marxism what lysenkoism was to biology.

In principle though, the fad about five-year plans being the harbringer of communism wasn't so different from the earlier fad about all-encompassing war economy being the harbringer of communism: collective self-delusion to get through an extremely stressful historical period. Stalin just didn't have anything resembling Lenin's emotional fortitude that allowed him to struggle for a counterintuitive minority position and declare NEP, with full understanding that old comrades would accuse him of launching a capitalist counterrevolution because they were psychologically stuck justifying all the hosed up poo poo they had gone through by having been building communism and being almost there. I hate how the fact that the five year plan fad stuck could be so successfully used as ex post facto evidence that the proponents of SIOC lied and actually always had a vision where international cooperation was superfluous to establishing communism.

Anyway, I believe that the lesson about declaring the lower stage of communism before the state is gone in actual practical terms has been learned by serious theorists, as well as declaring class gone while there is still an internal apparatus of repression.

uncop fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Apr 29, 2020

# ? Apr 29, 2020 12:44

Squizzle: Apr 24, 2008

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

https://twitter.com/CiaranDold/status/1254741877888290821
https://twitter.com/CiaranDold/status/1254741882879594499
https://twitter.com/CiaranDold/status/1254741887124111360
https://twitter.com/CiaranDold/status/1254741892442578952
https://twitter.com/CiaranDold/status/1254741897865768960
https://twitter.com/CiaranDold/status/1254741902915702785

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD9XIM7C7UM

this is like a bizarro world interpretation of the villainous boardroom from symbol of justice condorman (the show from the 70s not the disney film)

# ? Apr 29, 2020 15:13

Top City Homo: Oct 15, 2014; Ramrod XTreme

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRXvQuE9xO4

There was this recent video about Marx's views on "statism". The main take-aways I got from it was:

* The popular conception of "socialism" as this thing where political and economic power is centered on a state, as controlled by the workers, that will undergo the changes needed to transition into communism (which is state-less), is not actually that. Marx considered socialism and communism as interchangeable terms, ergo socialism was already supposed to be the class-less, state-less thing, and instead what we think of as "socialism" is actually the "period of transition".

* Further, the programme that Marx laid out in the Communist Manifesto:

isn't supposed to BE communism (perhaps this is more obvious than the prior point?), but rather is just the first steps of the "period of transition", as a means of reconfiguring political and economic power such that the workers can retain power, can establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, on the path to communism.

* Insofar as Lenin shared Marx's views on this, and insofar as the USSR never achieved communism (nor did they achieve socialism, per it being synonymous with communism), they still called themselves socialist/communist regardless, as a declaration of principles and as a way of explicitly distinguishing themselves from the rest of the capitalist nations, even if they arguably only ever... languished in the period of transition.

this is left com inability to read a book in video form

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAokAC2pZWg

# ? Apr 29, 2020 15:16

T-man: Aug 22, 2010; Talk shit, get bzzzt.

People can, will, and do disagree with your dumb ideology

# ? Apr 29, 2020 15:45

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

Ardennes posted:

The point isn't that just things are bad, but there is actually something intrinsically wrong with the US at its heart. I don't think nationalism in the US is actually only a middle-class phenomenon from experience. It isn't a class question, it is an ideological one. There are working-class people, especially if they ever served in the US military, that believe everything is right with the US (besides x or y group "ruining it.")

If you don't want to use the word "pill" fine w/e.

The average Russian circa WW1 was even more reactionary than the average American is now. Didn't stop the dialectic then

The main block to Americans developing class consciousness is the American Empire, which seems to be rapidly unwinding

# ? Apr 29, 2020 15:57

belgend: Mar 6, 2008; me when The Club do another win

apropos to nothing posted:

sorry from quoting from wayback but not been reading this for a while. the united front was a mistake imo specifically because it was a united front with the nationalists of the kuomintang. its also fair imo to criticize the comintern because they doubled down on the mistake once it had been revealed to be a mistake. they insisted and pushed for unity with the kuomintang under chiang and then once he purged them and massacred the workers in the south, they continued to pursue a policy of unity with the split which emerged under wang jingwei in wuhan and changsha, again only for the left-kuomintang to purge the communists and attack the peasants within a year.

all nationalist-democratic revolutions have had to deal with bourgeois parties at one point, both those that worked for the communists (cuba, vietnam) as those that didn't (algeria, drcongo). saying things didn't work out is a mistake is a onesided analysis of practice

# ? Apr 29, 2020 16:12

smarxist: Jul 26, 2018; by Fluffdaddy

Ardennes posted:

The point isn't that just things are bad, but there is actually something intrinsically wrong with the US at its heart. I don't think nationalism in the US is actually only a middle-class phenomenon from experience. It isn't a class question, it is an ideological one. There are working-class people, especially if they ever served in the US military, that believe everything is right with the US (besides x or y group "ruining it.")

If you don't want to use the word "pill" fine w/e.

it's honestly just the accumulated culture of privilege that has spanned multiple generations without being ravaged by war or disease, there's a strong heritage of entitlement and belief in the American Project that has buoyed outgoing citizenry for decades now

they're almost all dead

the generations that are coming up now are leaner and sharpened up by MUCH more prevalent class antagonisms, those sentiments towards the country are evaporating real god damned fast

we're not that far removed from the next Haymarket

# ? Apr 29, 2020 16:19

belgend: Mar 6, 2008; me when The Club do another win

like, i'm thinkin you haven't even glanced an eye at mao or mulele smh

# ? Apr 29, 2020 16:20

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

https://twitter.com/nachdermas/status/1255479378479403009

quote:

Nathan Robinson: I've thought about it a lot and I've decided that we'd be better off as socialists if Karl Marx had never been born.

And the reason is, it's a couple of things - the first reason is that if you look at the central tenets of Marxism, I think that a lot of them seem wrong, right? And, class struggle, materialist conception of history, dialectics - not too meaningful a word - the crises of capitalism, the diminishing rate of profit-

[Co-host: Everyone on the Jacobin staff is furiously typing into their keyboards right now]

NR: -the inevitability of hist- it just doesn't ring true to me and it also seems a very reductionist, sheep view of the world, I don't like the parts that are inspired by Hegel, because I don't think Hegel knew much. And Marx didn't invent socialism, so-

# ? Apr 29, 2020 16:47

Sheng-Ji Yang: Mar 5, 2014

GalacticAcid posted:

Lol at taking the Political Compass axes seriously

# ? Apr 29, 2020 16:51

Constantly LARPing: Aug 30, 2006

Ferrinus posted:

the first big tell for me was a great book i read a while ago laying out western leftist perspective on the soviet union, and how one of the prevailing theories was that it wasn't a socialist state... it was a Bureaucratic Collectivist state. what does that mean? well, rather than the workers running things via the mechanism of a state, the state itself has slipped its leash and is now running wild! then you had the guys patiently explaining that actually, the ussr was simply an example of asiatic despotism,

The best answer I�ve read on �What was the USSR?� is who the gently caress knows, it was really weird historically! But I feel confident in saying that it wasn�t socialist or communist. The difference between River Rouge between Magnitogorsk was minimal, you�re still producing value under capitalist social relations around production. To be clear, this isn�t an anarchist critique of the state, producing steel for a worker owned coop where your friend is the foreman for a one year term or something is still sucks (maybe more!).

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:02

Atrocious Joe: Sep 2, 2011

shocked that the guy who fakes his accent and dresses like an anachronistic dandy is against scientific socialism

also here's some cursed content to destroy the otherwise decent discussion on this page:

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:07

Top City Homo: Oct 15, 2014; Ramrod XTreme

T-man posted:

People can, will, and do disagree with your dumb ideology

How appropriate! You fight like a cow!

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:07

mila kunis: Jun 10, 2011

Constantly LARPing posted:

The best answer I�ve read on �What was the USSR?� is who the gently caress knows, it was really weird historically! But I feel confident in saying that it wasn�t socialist or communist. The difference between River Rouge between Magnitogorsk was minimal, you�re still producing value under capitalist social relations around production. To be clear, this isn�t an anarchist critique of the state, producing steel for a worker owned coop where your friend is the foreman for a one year term or something is still sucks (maybe more!).

Is it minimal? I feel like there's a difference between work that's being done for buying another yacht for a billionaire versus work whose value is reinvested into providing public services and goods for the entire citizenry.

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:15

smarxist: Jul 26, 2018; by Fluffdaddy

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/nachdermas/status/1255479378479403009

purges are probably a good thing

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:15

Top City Homo: Oct 15, 2014; Ramrod XTreme

Constantly LARPing posted:

The best answer I�ve read on �What was the USSR?� is who the gently caress knows, it was really weird historically! But I feel confident in saying that it wasn�t socialist or communist. The difference between River Rouge between Magnitogorsk was minimal, you�re still producing value under capitalist social relations around production. To be clear, this isn�t an anarchist critique of the state, producing steel for a worker owned coop where your friend is the foreman for a one year term or something is still sucks (maybe more!).

capitalist social relations, a thing that is totally real and not a bunch of verbal diarrhea. what is capitalism? we just don't know

Top City Homo fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Apr 29, 2020

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:16

Atrocious Joe: Sep 2, 2011

if you don't accept the ideas of class struggle or a materialist conception of history, what is your framework for understanding the world.

i can accept most people not getting dialectics or the idea of a diminishing rate of profit, as those topics do require study and explanation. but nathan robinson writes like half the articles for Current Affairs, he's not "most people," and he should probably figure out why communists and socialists have considered those important ideas for over 100 years.

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:21

MizPiz: May 29, 2013; by Athanatos

Atrocious Joe posted:

if you don't accept the ideas of class struggle or a materialist conception of history, what is your framework for understanding the world.

It's how I got where I am today

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:25

apropos to nothing: Sep 5, 2003

belgend posted:

all nationalist-democratic revolutions have had to deal with bourgeois parties at one point, both those that worked for the communists (cuba, vietnam) as those that didn't (algeria, drcongo). saying things didn't work out is a mistake is a onesided analysis of practice

its not dealing with them, it was specifically the pressure to join uncompromisingly with the kuomintang. when the canton uprising occurred for example on the orders of the comintern to coincide with the party congress which was occurring at the same time, the communists didnt have access to guns or supplies because the USSR was supplying directly through the kuomintang and not through the communist party.

the mistake the comintern made with the chinese united front (which really was a popular front though the distinction between the two hadn;t been made at the time) is the same one the mensheviks made which was thinking political development had to proceed through a period of bourgeois revolution which would then lay the foundation for the proceeding socialist revolution. this was the policy of the comintern throughout the 20s especially in asia in how they tried to orient many of the communist parties and it flew in the face of the russian experience. it was a conservative and orthodox marxist approach which had been completely discredited by the experiences of the bolsheviks in 1917.

apropos to nothing fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Apr 29, 2020

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:30

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Atrocious Joe posted:

if you don't accept the ideas of class struggle or a materialist conception of history, what is your framework for understanding the world.

medicare for all!

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:30

Lady Militant: Apr 8, 2020; The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/nachdermas/status/1255479378479403009

this is downright incoherent, has he even READ a single thing marx or engels has written before writing it off completely? what the gently caress

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:31

Serf: May 5, 2011

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/nachdermas/status/1255479378479403009

just lmao

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:31

dex_sda: Oct 11, 2012

"dialectics not too meaningful a word" looool

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:32

smarxist: Jul 26, 2018; by Fluffdaddy

Atrocious Joe posted:

if you don't accept the ideas of class struggle or a materialist conception of history, what is your framework for understanding the world.

that's basically the way i've felt for a long time now, you're either educated to the structures of our political reality or not, there's literally no "contending" school of thought, the essential conflict of our lives has been explained to us and you either understand that and choose a side or don't and get ferried to the side of evil

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:33

Constantly LARPing: Aug 30, 2006

mila kunis posted:

Is it minimal? I feel like there's a difference between work that's being done for buying another yacht for a billionaire versus work whose value is reinvested into providing public services and goods for the entire citizenry.

Sure, I�d rather work in a factory in Brezhnev era USSR over Detroit in 1970, but that�s a question of distribution. That�s when you fall into the Bruenig-esque trap of saying sovereign wealth funds are socialism.

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:34

smarxist: Jul 26, 2018; by Fluffdaddy

like even a teen fashion magazine was able to understand the nature of our reality and nominally try to pitch in with the good guys

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:35

dex_sda: Oct 11, 2012

smarxist posted:

like even a teen fashion magazine was able to understand the nature of our reality and nominally try to pitch in with the good guys

britney spears has a far better understanding of the nature of our reality than nearly anyone who has a popular political show nowadays

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:37

Lady Militant: Apr 8, 2020; The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

imagine faking this entire goddamn fancy lad persona and then forgetting to read even a single book

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:38

dex_sda: Oct 11, 2012

Lady Militant posted:

imagine faking this entire goddamn fancy lad persona and then forgetting to read even a single book

it just doesn't ring true maaaaaan

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:40

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Lady Militant posted:

imagine faking this entire goddamn fancy lad persona and then forgetting to read even a single book

but he has more hats and pipes to buy! where would he ever find the time

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:41

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Lady Militant posted:

this is downright incoherent, has he even READ a single thing marx or engels has written before writing it off completely? what the gently caress

It sounds like a critique of overly dogmatic Marxism but its dumb to ignore the entire body of work because some people take it too literally

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:42

Lady Militant: Apr 8, 2020; The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Raskolnikov38 posted:

but he has more hats and pipes to buy! where would he ever find the time

I don't mind that he's trying to play a character (even though it annoys many ITT) but for gods sake man at least do your homework. The left does need creative/crazy people cause it wouldn't really be the left without it but we can do better.

# ? Apr 29, 2020 17:46