Is Marxism dead?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Is Marxism dead?

Mans: Sep 14, 2011; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Looking at the number of newspapers i sold last month i'd say it's growing stronger than ever.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2014 17:39

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:02

Mans: Sep 14, 2011; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Ian Winthorpe III posted:

On the other hand, I simply don't understand the logic that communism will be the next inevitable step given that every form of society we have had has been based on hierarchy and division.

Marxist theory doesn't defend that after the overthrow of the capitalist regime all state, hierarchies and divisions would be immediatly obliterated. That's crackpot anarchism.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2014 10:58

Mans: Sep 14, 2011; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Friendly Tumour posted:

I'm really enjoying the fact you guys are debating the practical advantages of stalinism. Baby-eating: a bold new solution for the 21st century

It's unberiable i tell you what.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2014 13:58

Mans: Sep 14, 2011; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Typo posted:

The problem is that people seem to think Brezhnev era USSR was some sort of welfare state when in reality lots and lots of people in the USSR lived below the poverty line and being a brown muslim in the USSR probably still sucked.

Thankfully two decades of capitalism has fixed those problems.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 06:23

Mans: Sep 14, 2011; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Virtually anything would be a step up from 80's Poland but i guess we should ignore the majority of cases because of Poland.

We didn't turn Poland into Burkina Faso! Why aren't we receving medals?!

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 06:30

Mans: Sep 14, 2011; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Typo posted:

There's something positively colossally hypocritical about sitting comfortably in the first world, built on the very things you are complaining about, bemoaning the willingness of poorer countries not to follow Marxist orthodoxy to get richer.

literal "go to Cuba" argument. well done, you're now arguing like a spoiled Brazillian rich kid.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 06:57

Mans: Sep 14, 2011; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Friendly Tumour posted:

I'd say that Podemos is inspired by the same ideals of direct democracy and transparency in politics as the Occupy movement is. You can call it leftist if you want to, but I don't think you can justly say that all left-wing movements are Marxist.

lol the first thing Podemos did when it started to get mass appeal was to apply the same centralism that you see in any organized political party. Don't compare a proper and promissing European party with a bunch of American losers yelping without a cause.

Friendly Tumour posted:

it does mean that the time of Marxism is in the past, and that the ideas that are going to shape the history of this century are not going to come from the Communist Manifesto.

Friendly Tumour posted:

I for one am waiting for that new ideal that will inspire a new century of war with trepidation. Liberalism certainly reached the end of its road.

Friendly Tumour posted:

History is defined by war.

Interesting.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 00:36

Mans: Sep 14, 2011; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Ian Winthorpe III posted:

But the problem in areas of severe poverty like sub Saharan Africa of India isn't a lack of money to pay for energy but rather incompetence in governing, building and maintaining infrastructure. The difference between $2/megawatt (or whatever) and $0/megawatt isn't going to eradicate poverty and feed and clothe the people of a country like the D.R.C

hmmm yes the problem with Angola,Mozambique and Congo is the ~~~~bad government~~~~, not entire decades of brutal imperialist repression of anti-colonial movements and then some more decades of foreign financing of terrorists and bribes to to the local upper class and governments until economic policies that pleased the west could be implemented.

Ian Winthorpe III posted:

I suppose what i'm getting at is that this is one of Marxism's biggest blind spots to me: the role of tradition, culture, family, spirituality or ethnicity in determining how politics is played out. I think there's some truth to the Marxist notion that many of a societies morals and values arise from the circumstances of material production and class structure, but the tendency to dismiss these things as false consciousness or fundamentally irrelevant has been proven wrong time and time again. When Communism in Eurasia collapsed around 1990 one of the first things people in many areas did was to start killing and shooting each other along lines that go back many many centuries. So when a Marxist says something like

It suggests to me that they're not being very serious.

Interesting enough, the Soviet Union and the warsaw pact managed to conserve a lot of folklore and local traditions that were actually lost in the west, specially notable in Germany.

Similarly, if there are cities in Portugal outside of Porto and Lisbon whose traditions and cultures haven't been pillaged and prostituted to hell in the name of entrepreneurship then those cities probably elect Communist majorities or the communists compose a strong position in the area.

Friendly Tumour posted:

Occupy isn't confined to America though. Podemos grew out of the Spanish 15-M movement, which in turn was the Spanish equivalent of the Occupy movement in the states, sharing their ideals. What I'm saying is that there is a widespread feeling of discontent in the younger generations across the western world. The fact its first public manifestations didn't amount to much is irrelevant in that sense. The emotion and the motivation are still there, waiting for a new outlet. And new movements will come, and they will still be inspired by the same emotions that drew the people on the streets on the height of Occupy. Or that's what I predict anyway.

No the Iberian street movements didn't have anything to do with the American hissifits because there's actual politically organized groups here with history of resistance against neoliberalism and as such those "organic leaders" spent a lot of time in political youths, meaning they weren't complete and utter fools at organizing rallies, writting manifestos and declaring a clear ideological stance.

Ian Winthorpe III posted:

'What Matters' being the belief in a utopian ideology rather than a realistic appraisal of how human affairs are conducted?

Like, I get that, and it's admirable I guess but it's sentiments like yours that push me towards categorizing much Marxism as theology.

Marxism is directly connected to the study of sociology, political science, geography, history and economics to spare a few sciences. What in the hell are you talking about?

Do you think people inside a communist party just literally read Marx and that's it? They probably read more Engels than Marx because that motherfucker knew how to write some hard hitting sociological books before sociology even existed.

Nigga wake up.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 03:41

Mans: Sep 14, 2011; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

HorseLord posted:

The CPRF (CPSU with a new name to get around the ban) still aren't exactly progressive about gays. I'd pin that on it being literally russia though, it's no big surprise a society with a huge homophobia problem produces a communist party that reflects this. Maybe It'll change after Zyuganov dies. I know in the wider communist movement it's overflowing with LGBT people, Huey Newton did tell homophobes to shut the gently caress up decades ago, after all.

Speaking of Marx being dead, I think the CPRF is a pretty obvious pulse. Second most popular political party in Russia, and probably would have already taken the tricolour down and swapped it for the red flag already if it wasn't for Putin's internationally known and extremely obvious vote rigging.

It's always sad to see earnest communists of Ukraine and Russia because they're all about proletariat struggle and imperialism and their party is cool and poo poo but then they really do their best not to actually talk about their party because they know their party is either pressured to near total neutrality (Russia) or bribed to be another oligarch pawn (Ukraine, well not anymore, the democratic forces banned the communist party while using fascists as a back bone of their support, lol)

icantfindaname posted:

That actually seems like the same thing to me. Those places have bad government as a result of imperialism. But the solution isn't necessarily socialism.

Communists: noted defenders of cultural heritage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USSR_anti-religious_campaign_(1928%E2%80%9341)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

Pictured: Soviets in the act of preserving Russian traditions and culture

The Age of Extremes, Hobsbawm. Read some history before talking history. tia

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 15:34

Mans: Sep 14, 2011; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Ardennes posted:

To be honest, both the CPRF and the CPU are really poor parties, they pump out rhetoric but honestly more or less are implicitly happy with the status quo in both Russia and Ukraine (before February 2014). Don't get me wrong they talk about imperialism a bunch but they really haven't made any real pushes at fixing what are almost torturous conditions in both countries.

If you live over here you are look at pretty much very possibly political group and be mostly disgusted because of how little they want to actually change things. Neo-liberals, right-authoritarians, far-right fascists and the communists in economic terms are much closer together then you would think and socially many times they aren't that far apart either. Basically, the big differences are mostly ethnic nationalism.

I don't think the Russian part is that bad, i think it's more pressured to be quiet than actual corrupt (terrible social views though, Russia is extremely backwards in all political spectrums in this area).

But yeah, the Ukranian communist party was offensively corrupt, regionalist and a vital partner of eastern oligarchs.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 16:05

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:02

Mans: Sep 14, 2011; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

btween my imaginary GF amd asdf32 i think someone is developing some pretty good bots and releasing them on SA

# ¿ Nov 6, 2014 21:22

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Is Marxism dead?