What tendency/ideology do you best align with?

  • Anarchism

    Votes: 125 12.0%
  • Marxism

    Votes: 86 8.2%
  • Marxism-Leninism

    Votes: 79 7.6%
  • Left Communism

    Votes: 19 1.8%
  • Democratic Socialism

    Votes: 425 40.6%
  • Social Democracy

    Votes: 239 22.8%
  • Other

    Votes: 73 7.0%

  • Total voters
    1,046

Icolin

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,235
Midgar
i mean i might shock you to find out but this belief isn't confined to lefitst academia. Look at all the rich people buying compounds. They aren't all insane preppers. They know what the climate crisis will mean

bingo. there are two ways to go about it: saving everyone via drastic action or genocide. and we know that the capitalist class are choosing genocide everytime
 

TheHunter

Bold Bur3n Wrangler
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
25,774
okay but you don't see how they are connected

because they are connected

one will lead to the other
Oh as an environmentalist I know what you speak.

Climate refugees and dire straights will lead to ever more increasingly violent and authoritarian responses, fascist as well.

I believe we can and will fight it here.
 

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,450
I absolutely believe many moderate Democrats will start to pivot hard on border control and tough-on-crime legislature once we get waves of climate refugees.
 

Mekanos

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Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,450
Don't see how capitalism survives its most valuable sources - colonized countries plundered for resources - being rendered uninhabitable by climate change.

Coltan is an ore used to develop electronics for most of our modern technology. Some of the biggest sources of Coltan are Columbia, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Mozambique. Guess what continents are the most fragile to climate change?

Capitalism does not function without exploitation. That goes for both laborers and the land.
 

TheHunter

Bold Bur3n Wrangler
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
25,774
Don't see how capitalism survives its most valuable sources - colonized countries plundered for resources - being rendered uninhabitable by climate change.

Coltan is an ore used to develop electronics for most of our modern technology. Some of the biggest sources of Coltan are Columbia, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Mozambique. Guess what continents are the most fragile to climate change?


Capitalism does not function without exploitation. That goes for both laborers and the land.
How would socialism or any other economic system for that matter fix that problem?
 

Quzar

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
1,166
How would socialism or any other economic system for that matter fix that problem?
Along with actively changing production to curb the affects of global warming, a socialist or more left leaning government would only make things to meet needs instead of overproduce things like we do now.
 

TheHunter

Bold Bur3n Wrangler
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
25,774
Along with actively changing production to curb the affects of global warming, a socialist or more left leaning government would only make things to meet needs instead of overproduce things like we do now.
But how would that mitigate those resources being lost?

In this assumed scenario, where climate change has happened and we lost those things we'd still see a loss of society in some form. Even with socialism.
 

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,450
How would socialism or any other economic system for that matter fix that problem?

So here's the thing: capitalism creates vast amounts of excess of shit we don't need. iPhones, video game consoles, computers are cranked out in massive numbers, with arbitrary model updates that only come in because these companies want to create products that intentionally fail so consumers can buy more.

We don't need iPhone updates every 2-3 years, we don't need 3 different video game consoles, we don't need hundreds of different types of processing chips and computer builds. These things can be unified and built to last, but they intentionally aren't to create competition and incentivize more consumption and spending of money.
 

TheHunter

Bold Bur3n Wrangler
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
25,774
So here's the thing: capitalism creates vast amounts of excess of shit we don't need. iPhones, video game consoles, computers are cranked out in massive numbers, with arbitrary model updates that only come in because these companies want to create products that intentionally fail so consumers can buy more.

We don't need iPhone updates every 2-3 years, we don't need 3 different video game consoles, we don't need hundreds of different types of processing chips and computer builds. These things can be unified and built to last, but they intentionally aren't to create competition and incentivize more consumption and spending of money.
I don't disagree, this is a failing of capitalism.
 

Quzar

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
1,166
But how would that mitigate those resources being lost?

In this assumed scenario, where climate change has happened and we lost those things we'd still see a loss of society in some form. Even with socialism.
Already lost resources or ones we will lose? Well first, we could just give the things we've already produced to those that want those particular things and lessen production of said items. There is no preventing or stopping the loss of anything at this point, its just not going to happen.
 

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,450
Ultimately I think the takeaway is as socialists facing a climate crisis, the current standard of living can't continue. We can easily feed and shelter every human on Earth. But this bountiful excess of technology, wasteful farming (cattle etc.), personal travel vehicles like cars, so on and so forth, cannot go on. Life would radically change. A socialist society wouldn't be "everything is the same now but free and we don't have to work." We would have to radically reconceptualize society.

I think in this society we are refocused more on communal living and interaction. Less hours and hours spent alone in our rooms on our phones. A highly digital society connected via the internet would be incredibly important to maintain a socialist society for communication and whatnot, but we can't use it as a replacement for genuine human connection and growth.
 

Deleted member 25600

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
5,701
Don't see how capitalism survives its most valuable sources - colonized countries plundered for resources - being rendered uninhabitable by climate change.

Coltan is an ore used to develop electronics for most of our modern technology. Some of the biggest sources of Coltan are Columbia, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Mozambique. Guess what continents are the most fragile to climate change?

Capitalism does not function without exploitation. That goes for both laborers and the land.
I suspect that mining outposts will become a thing in these regions, similar to research outposts in Antarctica.
 
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sphagnum

sphagnum

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
16,058
What you've done here is sort of a bait and switch. The post you're responding to is basically covering three points which are intertwined to various degrees: that "human nature" is malleable and responsive to material and social conditions, that we have seen many examples of societies, particularly primitive ones, that were more akin to communism than capitalism, and then an application of this framework to the USSR. Your response is to say "but what about evolution?" (to which I'd say, read Stephen Jay Gould on Kropotkin), and then perform a limited comparative analysis of an ancient European society with the present day developed world. If you were responding to an anarcho-primitivist advocating that society as a model, it'd be a start. But seeing as you aren't, your post just seems like a knee-jerk non-sequitur. Which brings us back to the earlier thing about how "rational debate" isn't really what's going on here. For whatever reasons, you read the linked post, and your takeaway was that you had to respond, and so we end up with this situation where you feel you've rebutted the socialist argument, and the rest of us just see a conversation that went nowhere.

I was gonna write a response to xenocide's post, but this more or less already sums up what I was thinking. The point of the CT example wasn't to say "let's do this", it was to demonstrate that human interactions and social formations change depending on the material conditions that they find themselves under. So when the material conditions changed, it's not a surprise that the CT changed - that's the point! - nor is it in some way a damning critique of the idea of socialism or communism. Rather, it only goes hand in hand with our thesis.

Capitalism is not some natural, ingrained process - it's a specific, built system that arose out of particular conditions. It will not last forever, and as conditions change, there is no reason that something else can't/won't take its place or that human society can't/won't change along with it when we've seen it happen before.
 

FliX

Master of the Reality Stone
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
9,936
Metro Detroit
So because I have nothing better to do on my lunch break, TheHunter, I want to make an appeal to you, as a leftist to a liberal.

Let's set aside everything that goes on between us and this forum and the silly political arguments.

Let's talk about what communism is.

A year ago, I was pretty on board with socialist rhetoric. I wanted to seize the means of production. I wanted to make the ruling class pay for the havoc they've wrecked on people and the planet. I wanted to liberate the marginalized. I still do. But I was hung up on communism. Communism, like socialism, is a broad banner with many ideologies under it. But in America you're raised to believe that communism was evil at best, failed at worst, and Karl Marx was an insane Ayn Rand-like figure but for the left. That Marxism is responsible for the death of millions around the world. That compromise is the way. Incremental change.

To this, I say, and what I eventually came to terms with: communism is socialism. In Marx's day, they effectively meant the same thing. It wasn't until the rise of the USSR that communism as something distinct really materialized. But communists were part of the American labor movement for much of the early 20th century. They are the reason we "only" work 40 hours a week. They have been there for strikes, for civil rights, for all the big movements. Civil Rights especially.

The strain of communism that most people are aware of is Marxism-Leninism. This is USSR, Cuba, China, etc. Typically authoritarian in nature and what people think of when they think of communism. There are many disagreements in leftist communities about the validity of ML doctrine. I have complicated feelings on it myself. I certainly view the human rights violations that went on under the USSR as worth condemning. The gulags, the secret police. But it's wrong to view these in a vacuum. The United States was subjecting half of the country to an apartheid state with its black citizens. They were interning Japanese citizens. They were crushing labor movements. Funding Nazis. Destabilizing communist regimes around the world.

This isn't a play at whataboutism. The USSR owns its failures. So does China, Cuba, and other similar states. But I guarantee if the communists won the Cold War, in 2020 we would talk about the United States in barbaric terms in the same way we often do with the USSR. They'd condemn the homelessness, the poverty, the lynchings and racial oppression. Here's the thing with revolutionaries like Lenin and Che; they were revolutionaries, not superheroes. They were real human beings and made choices and decisions in their revolutions that not everyone is gonna like. War is messy. In today's world, these type of revolutionaries and figureheads are not allowed a "complicated" narrative. Obama, Clinton, even Henry Kissinger, have done more material damage to the world than people like Fidel Castro ever have. But they're our messy heroes, so they're allowed a "complicated" narrative. To say nothing of people like Bush and Reagan. The death toll of capitalism and neoliberalism is never given the same weight as the death toll of communism. If we wait for the romantic revolutionary who does everything morally sound (in a way that adheres to liberalism) we will wait until the world is underwater.

That said, I have no love for the USSR myself or similar regimes. I'm an anarchist. To which I would like to pivot to my own brand of communism, anarcho-communism. The belief that the state exists primarily to defend private property and protect the ruling class. I want to imagine a society where we work together as people and communities, not as nation states at war. I came to this conclusion when I realized a communist United States would mean the global south still suffers, and I reject that. I want to liberate all of the world and its people. This is an essential core of much of Marx's work.

Which brings me to climate change. Everyone's afraid of climate change. I have no reason to believe capitalism, even "controlled" capitalism will be able to stop climate change in any meaningful way. Capitalism by its nature requires excess production so the ruling class can maintain their profit margin. For the future of humanity, corporations and their hierarchies have to be abolished. Simply too much is at stake. These are scary times.

Yet, I have hope. I'm sure many view internet leftists as weirdos obsessed with guillotines and Stalin. Yet I have personally witnessed leftists of all stripes - socialists, communists, anarchists, democratic socialists, Marxists, and yes, even Marxist-Leninists - all get behind Bernie Sanders and cheer him on. He is limited by having to operate as a candidate within a capitalist country, but his campaign is dripping in Marxist and revolutionary ideology. That is a huge reason socialists have backed him. He is the one advocating for class war, condemning America's role in regime change, saying workers should have democratic ownerships of their workplaces. He is planting these seeds in the American conscious. All of those people of different stripes want to help the poor and the marginalized. They are scary because they're angry. Bernie is fanning those flames of anger and hopefully the fire burns even brighter going forward.

But it's a long, hard fight ahead of us, and I said earlier in this thread I want to reach out and do more activism and education. That's why I'm writing this post to you, so you can honestly understand what communism is, what it's been before, and what it could be. A lot of this might seem radical and scary to you. That's okay. You don't have to agree to all of it, or any of it. But I want you to read this, and really sit and think on it. Think about where we're coming from. If you're a liberal that frequently posts in the Socialism OT, I want you to make an honest attempt to think about what socialism means in all of its forms, even the scary Soviet commies.

If nothing I've written here convinced you, I'm going to link a post sphagnum wrote a little over a year ago that more or less convinced me to stop being afraid of communism. I read this post and thought "why am I afraid of communism if someone who I agree with almost entirely considers himself a communist?"

xenocide, if you want to understand too, please read both this post and the post I linked. I want everyone reading this thread who is on the fence, who doesn't like the scary leftists, or is convinced liberalism and capitalism can be redeemed, to read what I've written and the linked post. You don't have to immediately respond. Think hard about what's at stake, and what can be accomplished going forward. This is my plea. Don't give in to the idea that humans are inherently selfish or we're all doomed so we just have to constantly mitigate the damage done by the wheels of the machine.

Destroy the machine.
Thread mark this!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻
 
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sphagnum

sphagnum

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
16,058
When people see Bernie supports (not all of them) defend Joe Rogan as an ally

I don't think anyone sees Rogan as an ally. They see him as a useful idiot.

It was a gamble that didn't work. Probably would have been a better move for the general instead of the primaries.
 
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Oct 25, 2017
2,899
Ontario
they wanted to lock him in before he had the chance to recant

it's not like rogan is noted for his intellectual consistency

he has a huge audience who are getting virtually no leftist messaging

especially in the context of the bloomberg shit the whole rogan thing is such a pile of nothing.
 

Deleted member 6230

User-requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
6,118
they wanted to lock him in before he had the chance to recant

it's not like rogan is noted for his intellectual consistency

he has a huge audience who are getting virtually no leftist messaging

especially in the context of the bloomberg shit the whole rogan thing is such a pile of nothing.
Remember when Charlamange endorsed Buttigieg and actually campaigned for him as some sort of black outreach and no one said a fucking thing?
 

Peerless

Member
Sep 10, 2018
224
This is probably been a topic that's been discussed a lot before, but how does socialism address why people vote conservative/for people such as Trump? The whole economic anxiety argument makes me feel uneasy, especially as a minority. It seems to mostly be a fundamental difference between leftism and liberalism. I think that I'm a leftist, but this argument in particular is hard to address. Do socialists think it is just because of racism,mostly because of "economic anxiety",a mix, or other reasons? Sorry that this question is a bit loaded/rambly.
 
Oct 25, 2017
2,899
Ontario
it's a different kind of economic anxiety. you're average trump voter makes a decent living in a place with comparatively low cost of living

their culture and place in society is upheld by republicans

democrats have failed to offer them material solutions so they will take being screwed over in order to pick the people doing the screwing

honestly most lefties are more understanding of why people voted for trump

like i think it's stupid an no one should do it but at the same time i understand how for a person from a specific background it makes perfect sense without being an out and out white nationalist or something

trump isn't the first unqualified person to be elevated to high office because people don't give a shit about most of what the government does and just want to make people they hate miserable.
 

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,450
I don't understand self-proclaimed liberals who are rallying behind Biden knowing that:

1. He has well documented inappropriate behavior with touching and bordering on sexual misconduct, especially around children,

2. There is very strong evidence his mental capacity is fading beyond "he has a stutter." It's genuinely upsetting to watch him struggling to form complete sentences or erratically lashing out. This isn't appropriate behavior and it's wrong for someone like that to be gunning for the most powerful, stressful job on the planet. I don't like Biden as a politician, but it's wrong to be subjecting him to this. Straight up elder abuse. (For the record, if Bernie had another heart attack, I'd probably be saying he should drop out too.)

Is it just a cynical ploy to beat Trump and take back the Senate? I don't understand this or how anybody could be excited about a Biden Presidency or think he has good odds against Trump. If I was a moderate, I wouldn't think "fuck yeah, Joe," I'd be thinking "shit, this is our guy?" If it was 2016 Biden I'd feel totally different.



It's night and day. This feels like an insane joke, like an Eric Andre skit. I know other countries are looking at us and thinking we're insane (even more than usual) and they'd be right to.

The only reason I can justify voting for Biden is Supreme Court justices. That's it. I have no reason to believe he can even mentally survive four years of his first term. Cynically, you could argue this is the DNC's ploy, to put in a trojan horse VP and stuff his cabinet. Bernie has legitimate issues too as a candidate, but I don't know where this confidence in Biden comes from.
 

Deleted member 7130

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Oct 25, 2017
7,685
This is probably been a topic that's been discussed a lot before, but how does socialism address why people vote conservative/for people such as Trump? The whole economic anxiety argument makes me feel uneasy, especially as a minority. It seems to mostly be a fundamental difference between leftism and liberalism. I think that I'm a leftist, but this argument in particular is hard to address. Do socialists think it is just because of racism,mostly because of "economic anxiety",a mix, or other reasons? Sorry that this question is a bit loaded/rambly.
I am an immigrant minority. Undocumented for over a decade. I don't tolerate bigotry on a personal level, I love a good Nazi punching video as any other, and I also understand that there are power structures putting downward pressures on people that makes them more likely to lash out at scapegoats (blacks, gays, latines, ...) - especially when directed by someone with the veneer of authority that comes from high office (Trump). Maybe some of that was already there, no doubt, but the exploitation prerogative of capital makes it an interest to agitate these sentiments.

I still want to ease the pressures put on their demographic on a class basis, not because I wanna help racist, not because I revere the white working class above others, but out of an interest in what I think of as fascist/white supremacy counter proliferation. Immiseration is a recruitment tool of authoritarians and I wanna take that away by dismantling the oppressive systems by which they achieve that through.
 
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Wordballoons

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
1,061
The gloating amongst liberals is really becoming unbearable. Scared to post any responses in PoliEra because it feels like everyone is really sensitive about criticism while perfectly willing to gloat about how it would be a tragedy to have to pay a bit out of pocket when they make +$400k a year.

So I'll post here. I'm curious as to whether you guys think that on ST it was turnout from people who would normally show up in the GE but not to the primaries who were only motivated to get to the primary polls this time to stop Bernie.

The demographics Biden brought out aren't exactly ones that fail to show up in the general, and I just don't think there are tons of older african americans in the south or suburban women who weren't already voting in the GE while I do think plenty of them might not have cared enough before to vote in the primaries.
 
Oct 25, 2017
2,899
Ontario
at the end of the day those people have been placed in an environment where powerful people are trying very hard to get their constituencies to not trust bernie

it has very little to do with any one incident
 

Deleted member 25600

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
5,701
My question was more one regarding whether or not we can say Biden has shown evidence he can boost turnout
My understanding is that Bidan notoriously runs a bad campaign. We saw him win states on ST that he didn't even campaign in.

So if he does manage to boost turnout in the GE, it likely wont be because of anything he actually does.
 

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,450
Hillary was certainly a controversial figure but she definitely had an energized fanbase that supported her and believed her.

I'm not so sure Biden does. He's less controversial but I just don't get the feeling people are going to be excited about him in a GE. Hillary had the "first woman President" novelty. And the coverage of a sundowning Biden over a general election period will be brutal. That's not factoring in that Trump is a more daunting electoral challenge in 2020 than he was in 2016. His base and party are fully behind him. Biden will have anemic youth support and, while I think Bernie Or Busters were a minor, non-significant portion of people in 2016, I think there is a bigger chance they could swing this election. I wouldn't be shocked if at least 40% of Bernie's base doesn't show up for Biden.

I really don't think "I'm not Trump" is going to win this election.
 
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entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,917
The gloating amongst liberals is really becoming unbearable. Scared to post any responses in PoliEra because it feels like everyone is really sensitive about criticism while perfectly willing to gloat about how it would be a tragedy to have to pay a bit out of pocket when they make +$400k a year.

So I'll post here. I'm curious as to whether you guys think that on ST it was turnout from people who would normally show up in the GE but not to the primaries who were only motivated to get to the primary polls this time to stop Bernie.

The demographics Biden brought out aren't exactly ones that fail to show up in the general, and I just don't think there are tons of older african americans in the south or suburban women who weren't already voting in the GE while I do think plenty of them might not have cared enough before to vote in the primaries.
I'm not a Biden person at all, but I do think he will have a strong challenge to Trump.

I can't call anything now--too early.

Sadly, these ideas have a strong opposition. Personally, I think stuff like not bankrupting yourself because you need medical care is reasonable, but it's verboten to the corporate Dems and the GOP.
 
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Wordballoons

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
1,061
Hillary was certainly a controversial figure but she definitely had an energized fanbase that supported her and believed her.

I'm not so sure Biden does. He's less controversial but I just don't get the feeling people are going to be excited about him in a GE. Hillary had the "first woman President" novelty. And the coverage of a sundowning Biden over a general election period will be brutal. That's not factoring into the fact that Trump is a more daunting electoral challenge in 2020 than he was in 2016. His userbase and party are fully behind him. Biden will have anemic youth support and, while I think Bernie Or Busters were a minor, non-significant portion of people in 2016, I think there is a bigger chance they could swing this election. I wouldn't be shocked if at least 40% of Bernie's base doesn't show up for Biden.

I really don't think "I'm not Trump" is going to win this election.
i hope it isn't that high. I feel incredibly dejected and don't look forward to the needless harping on of centrists to vote blue no matter who, but I will vote for the moron begrudgingly. I don't blame others for not doing so and completely understand it, though - I've considered the same.
 

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,450
i hope it isn't that high. I feel incredibly dejected and don't look forward to the needless harping on of centrists to vote blue no matter who, but I will vote for the moron begrudgingly. I don't blame others for not doing so and completely understand it, though - I've considered the same.

Like I said, I would only vote for Supreme Court justices. I'm really not convinced Biden can even make it through a four year term.