Mass shootings and suicides are the results of the capitalist state not looking after its citizens as well.
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Mass shootings and suicides are the results of the capitalist state not looking after its citizens as well.
This is not me predicting anything. Socialism is the absence of state, class, and property and saying as such. If any of Those exist then it is not Socialism.
I can not predict the behavior of the masses freed from the state. I can only tell you that once the state is relegated to the trash bin of history it won't be reformed.
Again, if you absolutely need some one to draw distinctions between Capitalist and non Capitalist behavior then I have linked the work "In Janitzio Death is not Scary" earlier in this thread.
Other than the existence of slaves, slave holding mode of production and he Confederacy were 100% distinct in their political power structure, class character, and method of production and recreation of society.
Modern slaves exist in and are compatible with Capitalism. There are slaves today in states but no one refers to SE Asia or states in the Middle East as anything other than Capitalist.
I am not aware of any modern thinker, philosopher, or economist who has stated that there is now a new Mode of Production in society. There is no "spork" between Capitalism and Socialism.
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Jacobin did an interview with Lee Carter, the self-proclaimed democratic socialist who got elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. Nothing particularly detailed, and he's pretty obviously not deep into ideology, but it seems like he's got a down to earth style that would be good for introducing people to the concept.
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/11/lee-carter-interview-virginia-election-socialist
I'd really like to see if he ever starts pushing the workplace democracy concept, since most self-proclaimed socialists working within a bourgeois government tend to abandon it to focus on just government programs since its doable within the system.
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/11/lee-carter-interview-virginia-election-socialist
I'd really like to see if he ever starts pushing the workplace democracy concept, since most self-proclaimed socialists working within a bourgeois government tend to abandon it to focus on just government programs since its doable within the system.
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I haven't, but I'm going to take a wild guess that it's an anarchist idea about breaking down hierarchy that exists between students and teachers.
Maybe, although the angle I was seeing was that formalized education is basically putting children in labor in preparation to become laborers. I'm having a hard time finding anything not right-wing on it, so it might be quite fringe
Yup I have mixed feelings on it
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I mean thats definitely true, since public education was set up specifcally in a way to prepare students to learn skills and discipline for industrialized labor conditions. It was considered a progressive idea at the time because progressive didnt mean left wing but had a whole element of technocratic efficiency to it, bringing progress though planned methods (sound familiar?).
At the same time I have trouble determining how children would be given a good education with a wide breadth of knowledge without...teachers. I understand stuff like Pedagogy of the Oppressed, but if the idea is to literally get rid of schools then I would need to read more about it.
It came up as part of this book review that was being passed around this morning: https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/book-review/not-every-kid-bond-matures/
I'm trying to figure out how much its inclusion in the politics being discussed (held by the author of the book, Harris, although not exclusively by him presumably) affects my perception of the rest of the political framework.
"Progressive" at the time because at one point education was not for the poor but only the upper "caste". Obviously what was progressive then is not now.
But I think you have the right idea. The formalized, "rationed", collectivized, funnel of proper education is unnecessary. When knowledge is no longer a requirement to advance in life then the cottage industry and it's manifestation would/should go.
However, this sentiment...
Is stupid faux-revolutionary phrase mongering, Not that you've said it, but plenty of people have. The hierarchy that allows the education industry to withhold information from those who want to learn is different from the political hierarchy that exists between a learned person and those who want to learn.
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Yeah, I agree. The enemies in education are the ones trying to commodify it, to prepare students for life as wage slaves and to extract as much as they can from young and impressionable people, not teachers who just want to teach. Not to say that teachers aren't themselves playing a role in propping up this environment by being participants in it, but they're still workers just trying to get by within capitalism as well. That's no different from anyone else. And adjuncts, well, they just get screwed over massively. In some senses I'm glad I didn't get into grad school because a.) being forced to actually work for more than summers/part-time during school and not get cloistered in academia helped give me a better understanding of the reality of class struggle and solidarity with other workers and b.) all the grad students and adjuncts hated it anyway.
Anyway, thanks for that book review Mezentine, it was really fascinating. Lots to chew on.
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Interesting stuff - for all these new positions the DSA has won within council let's hope they can all walk the talk and really use their positions to raise the level of political struggle and general profile for socialist politics.
I have my problems with the DSA but this is where I think they can really start showing what they're capable of. I want to see what they're going to start doing now, I really do
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I woke up this morning feeling pretty good about our chances at telling people about socialism without having to contort ourselves into knots because of the USSR's constant presence.
Weird thing to think about immediately after waking up, but I'll take it.
Weird thing to think about immediately after waking up, but I'll take it.
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one Halloween I was debating between dressing up as a union organizer or a pokemon trainer and was suggested that I go as a pokemon trainer's union organizer, going on strike for universal Pokemon healthcare
I ended up not dressing as anything though because I'm lazy
I do, but im a Noob.
I think It follows the anarchy communism Idea. But im saying this without any study in this subject.
It's so weird finding out in XY that Pokemon isn't a post scarcity society.
I think the only way to get kids and teenagers to even care about their education is to pay them on a weekly basis, I also think all teachers should unionize and what not. Not just big schools but all teachers everywhere should be able to unionize everywhere.
It would offset income inequality in some what minor ways. Like $15 minimum wage
It would offset income inequality in some what minor ways. Like $15 minimum wage
Some interesting discussion about Israel-Palestine happening in the Gal Gadot thread. The apologists for zionism and the occupation never cease to amaze me.
Generally I feel people should be above the hyper nationalist theocratic statism competition.
child allowances, but presented as pay for education?
that's an interesting idea but seems like it would veer too close to means-testing for me, especially since there would probably be demand to tie in pay with grade performances.
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A lot of the reasons kids dont care about their education relate to the classes themselves being boring/designed to funnel them into being wage slaves rather than engaging them critically, poor funding, problems at home whether personal or stemming from socio-economic issues, a lack of belief in future prospects etc.
The problem is deeper and tied to capitalism (as always), not just kids being kids who think it's cool to blow off school just because.
In my scenario, just saying the phrase "means-testing" would mean that person getting fired
Funding teachers and giving mandates to all teachers to stimulate learners would also be a thing in my scenario with entertainment
This is absurd, sorry.
Giving a reward can actually demotivate people who otherwise would find education intrinsically rewarding.
Since you guys are interested in pedagogy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed
http://beautifultrouble.org/theory/pedagogy-of-the-oppressed/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed
http://beautifultrouble.org/theory/pedagogy-of-the-oppressed/
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I was shocked to learn recently Freire has such reach outside the country, he is barely mentioned if you are outside of some pedagogy circle.
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/11/free-jacobin-for-the-people
Free issue jacobin for anywhere in the world.
Free issue jacobin for anywhere in the world.
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We already knew that the Vietnamese were sellouts, but they just keep surprising me.
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/vietnam-dissident-locked-home-piss-trump-protest-184333871.html
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/vietnam-dissident-locked-home-piss-trump-protest-184333871.html
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Sellouts? Comrade, they are simply harnessing the power of capital under the direction of a workers' state with a long term but undefined goal to transition to socialism in accordance with the changing material conditions! Insulting a capitalist-imperialist leader would put at risk the international trade of the nation, thereby betraying the revolution!
Uphold Donald John Trump Thought!
Okay lets consider Vietnam though, or why does this continue to not work? Why do all attempts at socialist states so far not look like what we want socialism to look like? I mean, I know House of Lightnings answer (because they're top down attempts at reorganization, not spontaneous reorganization by the population) and I know what I think are my answers (material conditions make it tricky and there are vulnerabilities we need to guard against being exploited) but I'm curious what others think
Burocratic stalinism, distance from the workers, lack of direct democracy. Creation of the political/government class above the workers
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I would say a mix of both. The revolution was really primarily driven by anti-colonial nationalist sentiments with socialism overlayed on top of it out of necessity to get support, so I don't think the great desire of the masses was to achieve a socialist system. It was primarily a peasant agricultural economy and the party tried to jump over capitalism through central planning in the same way that basically every other 20th century peasant-country-run-by-socalists did, with all the same resulting problems. The farmers hated being collectivized, there was already a black market and secret private enterprise going on with everyone party member or not, etc. Then they looked around, said "Well, gues we'll be like Deng" and began the switchover.
Liquidationism, separation of the movement from the proletariat, the absence of meaningful democracy, but most importantly: the collapse of the world revolution.
I would say that assuming my answer "requires" spontaneity isn't fair. No Revolution simply happens and then ceases. They all boil under the surface before variously boiling over at different times. The outliers like the Eastern European "People's Democracies" were straight up political opportunism and the military campaigns like China or Yugoslavia were "Leftist" military organizations filling a political vacuum.
I also don't particularly have qualms with "top down", inasmuch as there will always be a Party and there will always be a Vanguard that carries the movement forward, authoritarian or no, and forces change. So I don't as much have a problem with "hierarchy".
The Stalinist model never adequately broke from bourgeois political organization. The Liberal Democracy Ritual was placed with the Soviet Democracy Ritual. Party organization still existed with the political "caste", interns, functionaries, flunkies, etc similar to political organization in the West. It was expanded dramatically with people reliant on being a political functionary and thus alienating them from their proletariat roots. Mao's attempt to break from this organizational method coincided with the Great Leap Forward and the Stalinist factions within the Party won out in the resulting power struggle. Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, Cambodia, etc all replicated the Stalinist organizational method.
So the biggest mistake there ultimately was Stalinism rebranding this political and economic organization as "Socialism" or Socialism in One Country instead of what Lenin correctly called it in his time: State Capitalism.
Material Conditions deteriorate so all of the "Stalinist" Parties ultimately become single party welfarist/Social Democrats. "Social Democracy at the Barrel of a Gun". With the promise that they'll at least keep the worker's gains in tact. Aka Reformists Capitalists aka the exact opposite of Revolutionary Leninism. As we can see with the slow deterioration of working conditions in all of these States, they even failed at that.