-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
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?
National Political Committee
DSA's NPC had a straw poll via email that asked the membership whether to endorse Bernie. I believe 76% voted yes, but there was a fair amount of talk about how the process was badly done, they should have waited until the national convention this summer, the NPC wanted this outcome all along and just consulted the membership as a formality.
The other (and imo larger) issue is whether the DSA should actually have a formal campaign for Bernie. I know nothing about electoral law but from what I understand there would be a lot of issues with an independent campaign: it would cost a ton of money just to buy access to voter info and there could be no coordination with the official Bernie campaign, possibly making it impossible to both work for Bernie's campaign and the DSA one.
Personally I don't care about endorsing Bernie (everyone who cares about DSA's opinion is already voting for him) and don't see what good an independent campaign would accomplish (seems like people should just go work for him directly). I guess there's some logic to running a leftist shadow campaign to use the attention Bernie generates and redirect it towards more radical ends but there's so many practical difficulties that it seems like a waste of time and energy.
OP
OP
I feel like it would be a better use of resources to push for more Congressional seats if they want to pursue electoralism, rather than toss all their eggs in the Bernie basket. If he loses, they look bad, but at least they might get more AOC's and Tlaibs for the future. If he wins, he has more allies on the hill.
Could the DSA's leadership be making the crass mistake of thinking that power if build from the top to bottom rather than the other way around?
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?
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"
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?
OP
OP
I went to a Bernie Sanders rally in Los Angeles and was somewhat surprised to see people at the entrance handing out communist newspapers.
It was interesting to see the man himself openly criticize things like the military industrial complex, which isn't something I expected a presidential candidate to ever do in my lifetime.
It was interesting to see the man himself openly criticize things like the military industrial complex, which isn't something I expected a presidential candidate to ever do in my lifetime.
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.
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.
Last edited:
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.
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.
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.
With "they" you mean Sakai or the whole field of settler colonialism theory/thinking?
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.
Several prominent anime creators are basically Communist, such as Go Nagai and Miyazaki.
But yes, Japan is a very conservative society compared even to most industrialized countries.
Miyazaki kinda renounced it. The Japanese Communist Party is pretty much your typical dem soc party.
I was going to mention (i think i have in the past *shrug* ) that about the Japanese communist party.
What did Miyazaki renounce ?
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.
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.
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.
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. Your average worker couldn't care less whether he gets the products from the means of production through some kind of socialist distribution scheme where the means are owned collectively or if the government just taxes the means of production quite a bit more than they are taxed now and the workers get the products from the means of production that way, so naturally the more politically attainable goal becomes more popular. Some hate it because it would take the wind out of the sails of their agenda of collective ownership but... honestly, the world the way it is today, slip sliding to fascism far far faster than to the left, I honestly don't think there's some big loss there because it's not like communism is particularly popular today.
I'll add a further point that the UBI is likely to be more popular today because a savvy politician can frame it as a tax on automation, rightwingers are going to have a hard time making people feel sorry for machines. The only concession I would make is that it shouldn't be framed as some kind of panacea. UBI, in a vacuum, could actually make climate change worse or increase various costs of living because market forces are allowed to continue unchecked.
Last edited:
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.
The Rhizzones forums are pretty much unreadable. Not that surprising considering its an offshoot of a closed down somethingawful forum.
Just stick to the posts that get added to the front page.
This is largely a take I can get behind. "Seize the means" or "Democratically control the means" of production doesn't mean anything in the long run as the worker won't see any real change to their method of production. They produce commodity now under a wage, when they "own" the means of production they still produce the commodity under a wage. Various working coops owning their own specific capital but in the aim of still producing commodity doesn't drastically change anyone's relation to capital and their own self reliance still depends on the production of other labor groups.
The idea is that once the working class has direct control over capital then the drive to endlessly produce disposable commodities would become antiquated. Commodity fetishism will end along with the impetus to produce them.
Socialism is to abolish the wage and its social relations. Simply being your own boss doesn't fundamentally change this.
Zizek has a pretty good essay somewhere about the struggles of deeply religious societies merely adopting their religious and patriarchal values into a secular religion. So maybe it's less "Confucian Values" and simply the inability for a young, new society to cast off their ritual habits even though they've forgotten their superstitions.
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.
OP
OP
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.
LTTP but I always tell people that Capitalist Realism is really worth a read. It's a short, modern book, that may depress you a little, but it's a real eye opener.
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.
Japan *is* really interesting but it's also had active and involved movements including student protests, environmental protests, recent LGBT rights protests, etc.
Italy is actually fairly similar to Japan in a lot of ways though. The Christian democrats dominated for virtually the entire postwar era and benefit from the left being fractured between the too-radical PCI and more mainstream socialists which is pretty similar to the Japanese left's fracture between the anticommunist Democratic Socialists and the more radical JSP which prevented a stronger opposition from forming. Both also have more corporatist economic structures (though I don't think Italy's businesses are as concentrated as the zaibatsu) and both have struggled more than most of the major developed economies since the 90s. The major difference I guess is that Christian Democracy imploded and has left Italian politics a chaotic mess of parties since whereas the LDP has managed to survive.
What are some good introductory texts on Maoism/third worldism? I was reading this pretty devastating takedown of Bhakshar Sunkara's new "manifesto" and I realized all of my knowledge of it comes secondhand. Obviously Mao I guess but which writings are best?
OP
OP
Lol Alex Jones ran into a DSA group at a fried chicken place
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFrea...lex_jones_cant_handle_ridicule_in_public_and/
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFrea...lex_jones_cant_handle_ridicule_in_public_and/
On one hand lol at DSA eating at one of our most expensive and absolutely not good fried chicke places
But on the other Fuck Alex Jones.
But on the other Fuck Alex Jones.
Third Worldism is a bastardization of Mao. Some of the origins of MTW comes from Lin Biao, famous for being killed by Mao because Mao thought his politics were shit and didn't want him influencing the Party.
Marx was a top-tier shitposter (Capital, Vol I.24):
Karl Marx said:
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
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.
The militarism that was prevalent in the soviet union during the cold war (especially it's hey day) is something that I'm uncomfortable reconciling in my brain because yeah they had to be militaristic because of the World War 2 but that's it still being seen as dismissed by tankies and USSR stans as whatever is nonstarter because as a DemSoc the thing I want more is discouraging imperialism and militaristic mindset and there is excusing that