I'm in line with Old_king_coal here. There's a real possibility (in my mind) that UBI is used by capitalist interests to preserve the status quo, so that doesn't make UBI good or bad per se, what matters is the goal beyond UBI. Just having it isn't enough, it needs to be part of the dismantling of capitalism.
NPC?So the local DSA chapter I'm kind of part of (too far away to go to many events) is forming a committee to investigate the NPC about the Bernie endorsement/potential independent campaign and I'm confused as hell
I'm in line with Old_king_coal here. There's a real possibility (in my mind) that UBI is used by capitalist interests to preserve the status quo, so that doesn't make UBI good or bad per se, what matters is the goal beyond UBI. Just having it isn't enough, it needs to be part of the dismantling of capitalism.
NPC?
What's this endorsement/potential independent campaign thing?
critical support over here is used in this sense "we dont fully agree with X person/group/idea, and we have critics against it, but in this context its the best viable option"Need some lexicon help. "Critical support" in a Marxist context means to support something even though it's subject to class criticism? Like say, supporting the ACA even though it doesn't actually socialize healthcare?
I'm reading Sakai's Settlers on the recommendation of internet Maoists, and while I understand the book has received some deserved criticism (prominently, it's strict application of the labor aristocracy thesis, lack of academic rigor, and dead-end politics), I have trouble recommending the book to people without a background in postcolonial and socialist thought. Is there a similar book (i.e, one that goes through the same history) that I could recommend to sympathetic liberals or socialists without having to babysit their reading with caveats about Sakai's political conclusions?
Yeah - but mostly in relation to the colonization of North America and labor struggles. I'm hesitant to recommend the book to some people simply because many could easily ignore the narrative in favor of criticizing Sakai's writing style, politics, historical methodology, or whatever - the book is controversial for this and other reasons, but is otherwise one of the more engaging and readable leftists texts I've encountered.
A preferred method for me is to take a significant section of the economy out of capitalist control to provide universal basic services free at the point of use. Housing, transportation, healthcare, food, energy (and other utilities), education, care, all free at the point of use.
Have you read Patrick Wolfe's 'Traces of History - Elementary structures of race'? It is considered accessible and is a much better take on decoloniality and marxism than Sakai. But I realize "accessible" comes in different forms depending on the context of the readers...
Like how they just make things up wholesale?
Settler's is one of the best examples of not reading Marx and not understanding Lenin or Mao.
FWIW, Sakai has walked back Settlers himself.
Yeah that's all understood. I was making the point in the context of reducing material impacts on people under capitalism. I'm under no illusions that my post would be socialism.This is still capitalism. The State is just the substitute for the human Capitalist. None of it is "free" as it is all being paid for by value extracted from labor.
Like how they just make things up wholesale?
Settler's is one of the best examples of not reading Marx and not understanding Lenin or Mao.
FWIW, Sakai has walked back Settlers himself.
Never heard of Rhizzone before. I just spent a few hours on it and had major flashbacks to my days on Luelinks/ETI. I forgot what it was like to wade into ceaseless ironic shitposting a dozen layers deep.I haven't, but it reviews pretty well and isn't too expensive. Thanks for the recommendation! I will check it out.
For what it's worth, I was trying to find a politic (hi, intersection of ResetEra and Rhizzone posters) way of saying something like: (what I have read of) Settlers presents an important and provocative narrative of colonial and labor history based on selective interpretation of the historical record and crude application of historical materialism, and think some MSNBC-types I know would appreciate reading something like it, but hesitate in making the recommendation for the reasons listed above. My knowledge of postcolonial and anti-imperial theory doesn't extend much beyond the standard ML and literary theory stuff you get from reading philosophy at a left-wing university.
It's weird until you realize Japan's Communist party is like, the 3rd largest in the world IIRC.
Shame the populace is so completely conditioned to being politically indifferent(thanks in large part to decades of influence from capital to keep labor in it's place) for it to ever take a major hold.
I was going to mention (i think i have in the past *shrug* ) that about the Japanese communist party.Miyazaki kinda renounced it. The Japanese Communist Party is pretty much your typical dem soc party.
Miyazaki has had a very weird political history.Miyazaki kinda renounced it. The Japanese Communist Party is pretty much your typical dem soc party.
Miyazaki has had a very weird political history.
They're definitely the traditional dem soc party with Communist branding, but they're a starting point for a country that's in dire need of a labor first party of any kind. They at least have tacit avocations for positive labor laws. The conservatives are quite literally going to destroy the country rather than cede any real form of social or societal control from capital.
Though electoralism is a non-starter in Japan in the first place. Even just living there for a year that was easy enough to see. The general public there is just thoroughly and utterly beaten down and apathetic.
Which itself was given a massive advent due to the lost decade very early in Heisei and why Komeito and LDP surged back and have maintained an iron grip on power since functionally the end of the war. You cannot relate the struggle of the proletariat when you have a Confucian base. The faux-humanist individualism created through Neo-Confucianism is anathema to mass action and the collective self. It's also why the nation is such a weird dichotomy of nationalist fervor and individualist societal functions. And the strength of the state despite the apathy of the populace for mass movement or politics.Neo-confucianism overshadows pretty much any political system that is adopted in a society that adheres to neo-confucian values. It's why Japan has simultaneously such a strong democracy while being functionally a one-party state, or how easily Maoism in China devolved into its current authoritarian-corporatist form. Neo-confucianism by its very nature deadens social dynamism.
quoting myselfI was going to mention (i think i have in the past *shrug* ) that about the Japanese communist party.
What did Miyazaki renounce ?
In the anime topic, made me rembember of this Miyzaki interview i have seen on internet
http://pages.citebite.com/n1r2l0s7w6abj
Question: After watching this movie, we awake to a socialistic justice, as if democratic socialism should now be reviewed.
Miyazaki: How can we go in peace without any dictators? The biggest bet of humankind to that question was socialism. It was grown in Europe during the 19th century and tested during the 20th century. As a result, it failed. We got to know there is no paradise on the earth.
I believe paradise only exists in the memories of our childhood. Because of that, many social movements that aim to make a paradise always end up failing. So we must accept that our world isn't a paradise. That is something which is too bitter for us though. That is why mankind created some ways to comfort themselves with several virtual ways.
Still, we necessarily need to acknowledge the reality that "There is no paradise on earth and around it". Around 1970, an Economics Minister of Sweden visited Japan and gave a speech. I watched it on TV and was much touched by it. He said, "There is no paradise on earth and around it. On the acknowledgment of that, we must think what nations can do and play a role." I was struck with his realism. Without realism, nations often make huge mistakes. Japanese stratocracy fell in a big mistake for a few decades because they lost realism.
At that time in the UK, WW2 ended and it was the beginning of the cold war. People had a fear for WW3 and nuclear bombs and also felt a crisis for the Soviet Union and communism. George Orwell noticed that and wrote Animal Farm and 1984. Halas and Batchelor must have had the same thoughts as Orwell. Halas was a Jew from Hungary. I guess he exiled himself from Hungary and went to the UK. During the war his homeland was occupied by the Nazis and after that by the Soviet Union. A totalitarian tyranny existed there and he surely felt such a reality in Animal Farm. Animal Farm had a nowadays theme for him. I think he wanted to depict the ugliness of dictatorship.
However, exploitation is not only found in communism, capitalism is a system just like that. I believe a company is common property of the people that work there. But that is a socialistic idea. Nowadays, American style capitalism has become mainstream. The stock holders have voices and change managers to get more profit in the current term. In addition to that, they downsize or restructure regular employees and enlarge temporary workers and part time workers. For them, temporary workers are just disposable. On the other hand, regular employees also are completely exhausted in hard work. Such a system is quite Animal Farm like.
Its scheme used to be common sense to the world. Now, everyone has forgotten about that. Everyone assumes he or she is in middle-class and blinded by the mechanism of exploitation. At a time, during the economic growth after the war, business managers also had to work hard. Because of its graduated taxation, the income gap In Japan was small. Before the bubble years, our society was like that and they didn't feel the reality on exploitation. But all were crushed by the burst bubble. Lifelong employment and seniority system were thrown away. Efficiency pay and target settings were brought. In my opinion these efficiency pays will bring workers nervous diseases. It is obvious that talented people must do their best at work without thinking about its return. Don't work for money. Actually, we need money though… anyway, we've thought that "Work is one's partner for life"….
Europe got disenchanted in socialism during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. During that war, not only socialists but also anarchists, democrats and several movements gathered in the people front. In the war, they were betrayed by Soviet Union. It was a big experience for George Orwell and he wrote "Homage to Catalonia" as a betrayed revolution. As they got to know more about the reality of the Soviet Union, progressive young people broke down with socialism. After WW2, the communists in France and Italy looked for ways of democratic socialism. At last, Europeans reached to EU. It isn't built by the socialists though, that is the only way to survive for Europeans.
Can we build democratic socialism? If it is possible, then I believe it can exist on the opposite side of globalism. In that sense I mean local production for local consumption. The wave of things like slow food or slow life comes more than once. That is kind of that. The desire of humans must be controlled. The idea that human desire can be grown infinitely must be changed at the moment when they get to know that the resources of the earth are finite.
My little wish is to wear domestically produced underwear. Maybe there are some if we pay enough. However, all underwear that can be purchased for reasonable price are all from China….
Question: There are some counterviews against the changing of the ending though. John Halas told that he wanted to give the audience hope for the future.
I agree. If they raise a revolution or a coup d'etat and exile the dictator and try to build an ideal world, then they soon will find a new dictator appearing in it. That is something history can easily show us. Despite of this, we should stand up again and again. I mean we have a right to revolt.To speak of my own private concern, during the 1960s I was very active in the labor union. I don't intend to say our activity was good or wrong. However, it was better to do than to do nothing, knowing human often makes mistakes. Recently young people begin independent labor unions. Revolutions should be raised everywhere.
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It seems to me he used to be a socialist in his youth in the labour union, but it looks like he lost hope about it, he seems by the end of the first question to still have a favorable opinion and likes democratic socialism, but he's not sure its possible, i believe.
"I believe a company is common property of the people that work there. But that is a socialistic idea"
uh I don't think Confucian values are taken seriously as an explanation of LDP dominance anywhere. The LDP benefit from a fractured left and the fact that the JSP was more radical than any comparable socialist party in the west and created clientelistic networks to game the SNTV districts. After electoral reform in the 90s it benefit by the implosion of the only strongly institutionalized opposition party (the JSP) and when it lost to DPJ it was basically at the worst possible time for an inexperienced opposition party to take power. The LDP is also highly pragmatic and isn't consistently a harsh austere party (though figures like Koizumi are)Neo-confucianism overshadows pretty much any political system that is adopted in a society that adheres to neo-confucian values. It's why Japan has simultaneously such a strong democracy while being functionally a one-party state, or how easily Maoism in China devolved into its current authoritarian-corporatist form. Neo-confucianism by its very nature deadens social dynamism.
Never heard of Rhizzone before. I just spent a few hours on it and had major flashbacks to my days on Luelinks/ETI. I forgot what it was like to wade into ceaseless ironic shitposting a dozen layers deep.
What a fascinating corner of Era.
Hi sphagnum! Don't mind me just starting to read and get to know leftist thought better so I'll probably pop in here every now and then.
There are some really glass half empty takes on UBI from communists I know because, I think, it exposes a weakness of their rhetoric, which is that communists try to sell the workers on "seizing the means of production" and I honestly believe that a majority of workers want the products from the means of production, they don't really care about owning the means of production.
What a fascinating corner of Era.
Hi sphagnum! Don't mind me just starting to read and get to know leftist thought better so I'll probably pop in here every now and then.
No offense taken.
I enjoy the podcast quite a bit. In high school I was a Libertarian jerk-off. GAF/Era and Reddit have really opened my eyes to things over the years. This is the next step, and some very light reading for me.
Baby steps it is, lol.
uh I don't think Confucian values are taken seriously as an explanation of LDP dominance anywhere. The LDP benefit from a fractured left and the fact that the JSP was more radical than any comparable socialist party in the west and created clientelistic networks to game the SNTV districts. After electoral reform in the 90s it benefit by the implosion of the only strongly institutionalized opposition party (the JSP) and when it lost to DPJ it was basically at the worst possible time for an inexperienced opposition party to take power. The LDP is also highly pragmatic and isn't consistently a harsh austere party (though figures like Koizumi are)
Even if you just look at the other two democracies in East Asia the argument becomes suspect. Taiwan and South Korea frequently change the party in government.
Japan *is* really interesting but it's also had active and involved movements including student protests, environmental protests, recent LGBT rights protests, etc.Thanks for the insight. There's a lot I'd like to learn about Japanese politics, which seems so stale at the top but has so much going on under the surface.
I often hesitate to make culturally deterministic arguments and the contrast with Taiwan and South Korea is important, I just feel like there's something in the Japanese body politic that makes their electorate so relentlessly disengaged. The reality might be mundane but it feels like something is unique there.
Ahh. Thanks.At one point his rhetoric was much more socialist. I'm not "expert" but I think his rhetoric as of late has been more of more humane and responsible capitalism.
Never heard of Rhizzone before. I just spent a few hours on it and had major flashbacks to my days on Luelinks/ETI. I forgot what it was like to wade into ceaseless ironic shitposting a dozen layers deep.
Karl Marx said:Bentham is among philosophers what Martin Tupper is among poets. Both could only have been manufactured in England [50].
50. Bentham is a purely English phenomenon. Not even excepting our philosopher, Christian Wolff, in no time and in no country has the most homespun commonplace ever strutted about in so self-satisfied a way. The principle of utility was no discovery of Bentham. He simply reproduced in his dull way what Helvétius and other Frenchmen had said with esprit in the 18th century. To know what is useful for a dog, one must study dog-nature. This nature itself is not to be deduced from the principle of utility. Applying this to man, he that would criticise all human acts, movements, relations, etc., by the principle of utility, must first deal with human nature in general, and then with human nature as modified in each historical epoch. Bentham makes short work of it. With the driest naiveté he takes the modern shopkeeper, especially the English shopkeeper, as the normal man. Whatever is useful to this queer normal man, and to his world, is absolutely useful. This yard-measure, then, he applies to past, present, and future. The Christian religion, e.g., is "useful," "because it forbids in the name of religion the same faults that the penal code condemns in the name of the law." Artistic criticism is "harmful," because it disturbs worthy people in their enjoyment of Martin Tupper, etc. With such rubbish has the brave fellow, with his motto, "nuila dies sine line!," piled up mountains of books. Had I the courage of my friend, Heinrich Heine, I should call Mr. Jeremy a genius in the way of bourgeois stupidity.
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm
Not sure if the stanning of the Soviet Union on the chapo subreddit front page is ironic or unironic but I think that in a world where the kulaks thing happen, not sure I can abide by that
There's a lot of that shit around. My first posts in this thread were getting advice on a friend of mine who got into Holodomor apologism and the kind of anti-US-imperialism stances that get you saying shit like "Assad was democratically elected." Shit like that is pretty prevalent in socialist circles unironically, which is why worthwhile socialist spaces tend to show naked contempt for tankie garbage. It's also why I don't tend to like gulag jokes.
Places that "ironically" stan for the USSR draw people who unironically stan for the USSR sooner or later. Similar principles to what happens with Youtubers or the chans, just with radical politics.