Karl Barks posted:

where is the joke

Enjoy posted:

jarofpiss posted:

no room for such nerdery in my socialism!

Fallen Hamprince posted:

*at the dsa meeting, yelling between sobs* we can't have a revolution without firing squads!

namesake posted:

But the socialist parties in the SI weren't in charge in their respective governments; it was a declaration of principle about whether they were social patriots or internationalist and the parliamentary parties principles were with the bourgeois nation.

namesake posted:

I don't see the relevance of conflict between revolutionary socialist states to whether reformist socialism is viable.

Enjoy posted:

do you think what people say to justify their actions is more important than what they actually do


the complaint about foreign interventions/great power politics that is levelled against reformist socialists can equally be levelled against revolutionary socialists. if you think revolutionary socialism is viable in spite of things like sino-vietnamese war, then reformist socialism is also viable

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

The Sino-Vietnamese war was literally Dengist though.

Enjoy posted:

do you think what people say to justify their actions is more important than what they actually do

quote:

the complaint about foreign interventions/great power politics that is levelled against reformist socialists can equally be levelled against revolutionary socialists. if you think revolutionary socialism is viable in spite of things like sino-vietnamese war, then reformist socialism is also viable

Enjoy posted:

if your position is really that actually existing revolutionary socialism only existed for like 5 years before collapsing after a cabinet reshuffle then that's a pretty good reason to give up on it as well

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

I'd say it's a good reason that capitalist roaders can never be tolerated, instead.

namesake posted:

But what they did was substantially different, the other examples you cite may have been wrong but they were wielding state power and believed what they were doing was best to retain that, the SI had political office in a bourgeois nation and did what they did to best to retain that. In terms of reaching actual socialism the SI acted no different that a bourgeois party would while the USSR etc were actively maintaining what they believed was socialism.


Ah okay, I believe reformist socialism is not a viable path because history has examples of them being trapped by electoral politics and the logic of bourgeois statehood which I believe to be inevitable when trying to take power in such a way and the greater point that socialism must be forged by the working class, it cannot simply be achieved by a vote and then some time later a law is passed turning them into a co-operative because capitalist forces will fight tooth and nail to delay and derail such attempts and even if they fail the general population must have a strong desire for the principles of socialism to be enacted or else they will simply not bother to maintain it themselves and let reactionaries and/or authoritarians take charge. Revolutionary socialism completely removes these from the equation by relying on the working class directly recreating the state through their own emancipation.

Basically I won't say it's totally impossible for reformist socialism to work (because the world is a complicated place) but based on current evidence revolutionary socialists have seized power from capitalist nations, reformed political and economic structures and existed for decades multiple times while there has yet to be a reformist socialist state passing any bill through any house setting out to abolish capitalism and hand control to the worker.

Enjoy posted:

you are begging the question by assuming that the revolutionary socialists were acting in good faith to achieve socialism while the reformists weren't

Fallen Hamprince posted:

when ur take away from 20th century chinese history is 'mao didn't kill enough people' its a good sign you shouldnt be trusted with any more political power than that of honorary village dog catcher

namesake posted:

No I'm saying they tried different methods and one side had successful revolutions against their power structures and the other didn't ever successfully reform their way to socialism?

I'm happy to say both have ended in failure to date, but it seems that revolutionary methods have come a lot closer to success by actually taking and using the tools they'd need to succeed.

Enjoy posted:

i guess we will have to agree to disagree

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

IMO if you discount the possibility of revolutionary socialism being able to succeed, then nothing is possible - because bourgeois interests will inevitably reassert themselves against reformist agendas.

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

IMO if you discount the possibility of revolutionary socialism being able to succeed, then nothing is possible - because bourgeois interests will inevitably reassert themselves against reformist agendas.

Enjoy posted:

turns out lenin was the biggest porky around

Enjoy posted:

turns out gorbachev was the biggest porky around

Enjoy posted:

i expect you will write off things like universal suffrage, the end of colonialism, inheritance taxes, universal education, a national health service and progressive income taxes with some "just so" story about how this was all to the secret advantage of the bourgeoisie

but the thing is you can do the same for anything. the ussr shooting all the russian capitalists was actually to the advantage of international capital because it removed competition from american and british businesses, then when stalin invited ford etc to build his factories this opened new markets for international capital to exploit, and laid the groundwork for the collapse of the ussr which gave international capital the russian state industries for pennies. turns out lenin was the biggest porky around

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

those are all stupid though, and ahistorical. there's plenty to criticize about "socialism in one country" without assuming that revolutionary efforts are never worth it. reforms are important for marginally improving standards of living, but the point isn't to make life more tolerable- but to completely overthrow the bourgeois relations of production.

Enjoy posted:

but the thing is you can do the same for anything. the ussr shooting all the russian capitalists was actually to the advantage of international capital because it removed competition from american and british businesses, then when stalin invited ford etc to build his factories this opened new markets for international capital to exploit, and laid the groundwork for the collapse of the ussr which gave international capital the russian state industries for pennies. turns out lenin was the biggest porky around

Fallen Hamprince posted:

when ur take away from 20th century chinese history is 'mao didn't kill enough people' its a good sign you shouldnt be trusted with any more political power than that of honorary village dog catcher

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Enjoy posted:

the point of what? the point of life? each of us must decide that for xirself

Jizz Festival posted:

lol, the point of socialism

Baloogan posted:

the gently caress is actually wrong with ham and cheese sandwiches
its walker leftist signalling
guess everynoen itt eats at bread garden smdh

Dreddout posted:

Actually the point of socialism is to allow white men to use the n word

Jizz Festival posted:

lol, the point of socialism

Enjoy posted:

in that case, "overthrowing the bourgeois relations of production" is itself not a goal but a method of making life more tolerable. no one is getting fired up over whether the factory boss reports to shareholders or a central committee, it's the effect it has on the people that is important.

ultimately reform vs revolution is a question of methods that is answered by looking at history. the consensus in society is clear.

Larry Parrish posted:

He's just a dem soc which by definition is a form of liberal. So I could care less what he does

consumed by normies posted:

a lot of more radical types think democratic socialists are essentially liberals

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

The purpose of socialism is to transform the people from being, rather than the passive subjects of a ruling class, into historical agents via collective action. A socialist society could face just as much hardship and deprivation as a capitalist society, but in a socialist society this would be the result of base material constraints, whereas in capitalism this is due to the bourgeois imposition of private property and the way that it directs energy and resources into the control of a tiny minority. The point is to give the people the power to affect change in their environment, and not to hope in the benevolence of a distant political or propertied class.

Jizz Festival posted:

you don't really "get" socialism yet. it's ok, I was there for a long time.

it's not meant to be some program that's administered by elites to "make life more tolerable" for the masses, it's about putting actual power in the hands of the people that goes beyond the pathetic representative democracy we have today, reaching into the realm left to private businesses right now. yes, it should make people's lives better, but in a completely different way than welfare programs.