Socialism |OT| The Dawn of a Red Era

[Deffers]

Well anarchy sucks so there is that :P

Still better than Objectivism!

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I mean, I'm ahead of you in the queue to shove anprims and ancaps in the dumpster, but you're going to have to be more specific than that. Which anarchism sucks, and why? Because even if I granted that anarchism sucked across the board (lol), there's no conceivable universe in which Stirnerists suck in the same way as platformists.

 

[TheHunter]

I mean, I'm ahead of you in the queue to shove anprims and ancaps in the dumpster, but you're going to have to be more specific than that. Which anarchism sucks, and why? Because even if I granted that anarchism sucked across the board (lol), there's no conceivable universe in which Stirnerists suck in the same way as platformists.

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The idea of a stateless society itself is silly, illogical and unreasonable.

If we were smaller and less geographically isolated it might work but this isn't life.

I don't know enough about all the different anarchist thoughts to tell you why each is less appealing.

 

[Luminish]

Soc Dem my friend.

I don't think we will ever be without hierarchy. That's less a problem of class/left/right and more just scale. Too many people requires leader/class divide. You simply lesson that divide/privilege as best you can.

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Sounds more Leninist than soc dem to me.

There doesn't need to be a never ending hierarchical power struggle. There does need to be desision makers of varying levels of importance as well as ways to distribute particularly rare luxury resources, but that does not necessarily mean there needs to be hierarchy at a societal level to achieve that.

I believe in the distribution of necessities according to the need, luxuries according to self sacrifice, and control according to decentralized democratic will.

I think that means being against capitalism on an ideological level, not a technical one. There's probably different ways to set it up in where and how you use markets, ballots, and bureaucracy at what level of granularity. So sure, I'll agree with capitalism and socialism being not very ideological if you use capitalism to mean markets and socialism to mean bureaucracy.

 

[Deffers]

The idea of a stateless society itself is silly, illogical and unreasonable.

If we were smaller and less geographically isolated it might work but this isn't life.

I don't know enough about all the different anarchist thoughts to tell you why each is less appealing.

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Well, statelessness is not the same thing as being without government. That's a crucial thing you gotta be clear on.

As for the different kinds of anarchist thoughts, the two main branches are libertarian socialism and individualist anarchism. There was a really, really Quite Good Venn Diagram posted here a few months back where instead of overlapping indiv. anarchists and libsoc circles are smooching. Because that more or less encompasses the relationship. Not overlap, nor separation, but working together in solidarity pretty much from the word jump. Most of the time, anyways. Individualists are typically philosophically based on the observation that societal constructs are effectively arbitrary. Stirner and his spooks represents the source for this mode of thinking. Libertarian socialists are, unsurprisingly, a part of the Socialist tradition proper. Proudhon and his mutualism are the source for this mode of thinking, with Bakunin representing the point where the "split" between anarchism and Marxism was most directly produced.

Individualist anarchists are the sort that inspire the "lifestyle anarchism" most people are likely to be familiar with. Yunno, the kind of "anarchist" that's gone enough to think Ted Kaczynski is a comrade, but I hesitate to call them lifestyle anarchists themselves.
Libertarian socialists typically encompass anything that thinks individual liberty and democracy is important but is harder left than democratic socialism, so they don't have as many people besmirching their good names.

As I've mentioned before, if Rojava isn't big enough for you to believe that such systems are workable, I'd point you to the CNT-FAI before it was betrayed. I still think it's possible, it's just not easy. And Bookchin's proposals are on another level entirely.

 

[Deleted member 22490]

You can still have hierarchy, without capitalism.

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This. The goal is to get rid of unjust hierarchies.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Well, statelessness is not the same thing as being without government. That's a crucial thing you gotta be clear on.

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how do you have government without a body that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force

As I've mentioned before, if Rojava isn't big enough for you to believe that such systems are workable, I'd point you to the CNT-FAI before it was betrayed. I still think it's possible, it's just not easy. And Bookchin's proposals are on another level entirely.

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"it works as long as it is politically useful to one of the great powers" is not as compelling an argument as you might think?

 

[Pekola]

The idea of a stateless society itself is silly, illogical and unreasonable.

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You've moved from thinking a stateless society wouldn't work to framing it as illogical.

But it's not earned. Show your work.

 

[Deleted member 18360]

Anarchism seems more realistic in the long term to me given that a scepticism about the state seems like a necessary lens for anticipating future social challenges or contradictions not directly related to capital (say a populist socialist movement being co-opted by the political class or political representatives, which is a thing that seems to happen whenever the circumstances allow for it.)

Soc dem may be more realistic in the short term but that comes at the cost of entering the discussion from a perspective of pre-compromise, and that leaves us with difficulty in imagining how our society might continue to transform itself beyond our most immediate concerns. I think most revolutionaries are equally as worried about revolution as they are optimistic about it, and they just want a singular revolution to be carried out as effectively and comprehensively and bloodlessly as possible so we don't have to again entertain the notion of revolution (or at least, we prevent that as much as possible) because the probability involved in having to take repeated gambles is not good. So I actually think there's an argument that one might adopt the more uncompromising perspective where we just get it right the first time because the alternative seems like a failure of forethought.

Purely from an ideological perspective, statelessness is absolutely a desirable outcome, which is probably why both anarchists and socialists arrive there, just with different intervening steps.

 

[louisacommie]

There's certain threads that if I'm not going to get a chance to be one of the first post

Il just not bother

Certain thread already over 90 posts
I have the correctist take but whatever I don't feel like it

 

[Acorn]

There is an election happening here so it's Christmas for data nerds and the people that love polls but it's driving me nuts. The type of people for whom everything is a triangulation to increase the probability of a victory according to X model but ignore the models failing repeatedly in the past. And polls being wrong the last 4 or 5 times.

Argh.

 

[Deleted member 82]

Honestly, even if polls are accurate, I can't help but feel they're a big hindrance to the democratic voting process. The fact that they're so normalized in most countries annoys me because it's so obvious that they're introducing a huge bias. But we accept them like they've always been there and should be there.

There would be none of this "useful/strategic voting" bullshit if people were asked to vote completely blind. They would vote for who they really want. It still wouldn't be perfect of course, but it would be a heck of a lot better than what we have now.

Granted, my company is not a polling company, but we have a platform where we ask people to vote for their favourite among a selection of items... And there is no way in hell we would give them any estimates ahead of time. It would completely skew the entire process.

 

[Acorn]

Honestly, even if polls are accurate, I can't help but feel they're a big hindrance to the democratic voting process. The fact that they're so normalized in most countries annoys me because it's so obvious that they're introducing a huge bias. But we accept them like they've always been there and should be there.

There would be none of this "useful/strategic voting" bullshit if people were asked to vote completely blind. They would vote for who they really want. It still wouldn't be perfect of course, but it would be a heck of a lot better than what we have now.

Granted, my company is not a polling company, but we have a platform where we ask people to vote for their favourite among a selection of items... And there is no way in hell we would give them any estimates ahead of time. It would completely skew the entire process.

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Yep, it's also birthed or atleast increased the prominence of people for whom politics is just a sort of sport, with no vision beyond picking whatever positions best resonate with polls.

It seems to be mostly middle class folk for whom it doesn't really matter who is in power because they'll be fine regardless.

Whenever I bring up these polls being wrong in pretty significant ways with important questions, I get some variation of "nothing is 100% accurate" no shit, but you and various politicians act like it's 100% accurate when devising shite policies.

 

[Acorn]

Has anyone else noticed the number of people in the top 5% of earners being offended about being classed as rich? I've noticed it alot but it's been popping up more and more on this site.

Even when they know they are in the top x% of earners and explaining how much more it is than the average they still rail against it. It's interesting, it reminds me of some old study that said the majority of wealthy and middle class considered themselves working class here lol

 

[Deleted member 82]

Has anyone else noticed the number of people in the top 5% of earners being offended about being classed as rich? I've noticed it alot but it's been popping up more and more on this site.

Even when they know they are in the top x% of earners and explaining how much more it is than the average they still rail against it. It's interesting, it reminds me of some old study that said the majority of wealthy and middle class considered themselves working class here lol

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Yeah, though it's anecdotal, I remember this thread someone posted a while ago where they complained about how much taxes they had to pay. They had no trouble telling everyone exactly how much they had to pay in taxes, even though nobody asked them, but when asked for their annual salary? No answer. Someone worked out that they pretty much had to be earning 6 figures, which definitely qualifies as rich, or at the very least wealthy, yet they would deny it. Like, I get that the US sucks for stuff like health insurance, but even then, $100k+/year is an unfathomable amount of money to most people. I wouldn't even know what to do with it. Heck, I'd consider myself wealthy if I earned half as much as that.

 

[Acorn]

Yeah, though it's anecdotal, I remember this thread someone posted a while ago where they complained about how much taxes they had to pay. They had no trouble telling everyone exactly how much they had to pay in taxes, even though nobody asked them, but when asked for their annual salary? No answer. Someone worked out that they pretty much had to be earning 6 figures, which definitely qualifies as rich, or at the very least wealthy, yet they would deny it. Like, I get that the US sucks for stuff like health insurance, but even then, $100k+/year is an unfathomable amount of money to most people. I wouldn't even know what to do with it. Heck, I'd consider myself wealthy if I earned half as much as that.

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There's a thread about the fight for homelessness that turned into a six figures support group, it's kinda incredible. They latched onto the 70k rent figure (comments include "but you're rich if you have 100k"), yeah that's crazy fucking rent costs but dude you still have a minimum 30kish after rent, that's more than a lot of people - maybe even the majority - earn period.

 

[Deleted member 82]

There's a thread about the fight for homelessness that turned into a six figures support group, it's kinda incredible. They latched onto the 70k rent figure (comments include "but you're rich if you have 100k"), yeah that's crazy fucking rent costs but dude you still have a minimum 30kish after rent, that's more than a lot of people - maybe even the majority - earn period.

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For real. 30k spare money is a dream for me. I make less than that total - and rent eats exactly half of my income -, though I suppose social security, health and education costs are comparatively negligible in my country. At least I have 0 student loans or debts.

Also, I'd like to see what kind of apartment this person has with a rent that high. Unless they live in San Francisco or something, I'm sure it's a pretty nice flat. Meanwhile, poor dumb me lives in a 21m² apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the whole of Europe lol.

 

[manchego obfuscator]

Has anyone else noticed the number of people in the top 5% of earners being offended about being classed as rich? I've noticed it alot but it's been popping up more and more on this site.

Even when they know they are in the top x% of earners and explaining how much more it is than the average they still rail against it. It's interesting, it reminds me of some old study that said the majority of wealthy and middle class considered themselves working class here lol

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heck, people who think that making 75-95K/year, even in a city like NYC, isn't incredibly privileged annoy the shit out of me as is

 

[Pekola]

I guess there's something to be said about things when people practically order the poor, homeless, and disabled on how to live their lives— BUT! when their enormous privilege gets pointed out, suddenly it's "BUT MY LOCATION!", "BUT MY KIDS!" or "BUT MY RENT IS HIGH!"

Okay and? There's FAR more you can do with a 6 figure salary than what 95% of the country can do. Get creative.

BTW, anyone have the link to the website where you put in your income and it shows you little blue/green people explaining in which percentage you fall in?

 

[Deleted member 25600]

Remember when Capitalism made all your favourite things, but also it didn't?

 

[pigeon]

Has anyone else noticed the number of people in the top 5% of earners being offended about being classed as rich? I've noticed it alot but it's been popping up more and more on this site.

Even when they know they are in the top x% of earners and explaining how much more it is than the average they still rail against it. It's interesting, it reminds me of some old study that said the majority of wealthy and middle class considered themselves working class here lol

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People feel like being "rich" should mean that they no longer feel stress and emotion about money. Of course this isn't how money or capitalism works.

 

[Snowy]

I'm surprised nobody made a big effort post in that thread about tankies trying to contextualize them.

 

[Deffers]

I'm surprised nobody made a big effort post in that thread about tankies trying to contextualize them.

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Was there a need when Sphagnum blasted it out of the park on the first reply?

 

[Deleted member 14459]

People feel like being "rich" should mean that they no longer feel stress and emotion about money. Of course this isn't how money or capitalism works.

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To the extent that it is capitalism that has reduced our understanding of human freedom to signify only freedom of consumption it is how capitalism works. At the same time it excludes us the freedom to debate, not to mention alter, the socio/economic system. So for me, them feeling that about freedom is how capitalism works.

 

[pigeon]

To the extent that it is capitalism that has reduced our understanding of human freedom to signify only freedom of consumption it is how capitalism works. At the same time it excludes us the freedom to debate, not to mention alter, the socio/economic system. So for me, them feeling that about freedom is how capitalism works.

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Okay, sure, I just mean mo money mo problems

 

[FliX]

Remember when Capitalism made all your favourite things, but also it didn't?

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PragerU is the absolute worst...

 

[Deleted member 22490]

Socialist Lee Carter won his second term

 

[sphagnum]

Socialist Lee Carter won his second term

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The absolute boy.

 

[GiantBreadbug]

Socialist Lee Carter won his second term

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Hell yeah

 

[Deleted member 22490]

 

[sphagnum]

Charlottesville DSA founder (Michael Payne) elected to city council

Meanwhile, not looking good for Kshama Sawant in Seattle.

 

[TheHunter]

Glad to see progressive wins tonight.

Now to figure out the tax issue the electorate has so we can actually pass our legislation and we're cooking.

 

[Deleted member 32561]

Charlottesville DSA founder (Michael Payne) elected to city council

Meanwhile, not looking good for Kshama Sawant in Seattle.

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Oh HELL yes for Charlottesville. Sucks for Sawant though, just looked her up, she seems really cool.

 

[manchego obfuscator]

ugh at Sawant probably losing. I know there have been issues with her relationship with Socialist Alternative, but it sets a bad precedent if Amazon can buy an election, and her opponent is a Buttigieg-like white elite liberal gay.

on the positive side, at least Carter and one of the DSA-endorsed Philadelphia City Council candidates won

 

[Luminish]

I listen to an episode of pod save america about once every couple of months, and every time I'm shocked at how much more they hate bernie than the last time I listened.

Like it went from "Bernie is great, we're all on the same team" to "Bernie is great but some of his supporters are doing him a disservice by being mean on twitter" to "Bernie overall is pretty good, but I wish he just didn't hurt his electability by using the word 'socialism'" to "Bernie is an uninspiring and confused candidate with only fringe support"

I'm guessing come janurary it'll be "Bernie's a racist and sexist" and come march it'll be "Bernie will be the death of democracy".

 

[TheHunter]

So ah that Bill Gates interview about Warren vs Trump...YIKES.

Maybe ya'll socialists really are 100% right.

 

[Deleted member 25600]

So ah that Bill Gates interview about Warren vs Trump...YIKES.

Maybe ya'll socialists really are 100% right.

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99%

We'll leave a margin of error.

 

[Shy]

So ah that Bill Gates interview about Warren vs Trump...YIKES.

Maybe ya'll socialists really are 100% right.

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[TheHunter]

They're arguing because he said Professional he's ok.

Like...you shouldn't need to dodge that question ya'll.

 

[sphagnum]

Some day, a clever rich person will say "I think of myself as a new Engels."

 

[Deffers]

So ah that Bill Gates interview about Warren vs Trump...YIKES.

Maybe ya'll socialists really are 100% right.

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Most of us didn't become socialists because of the good points of the system. The real nasty bad parts of capitalism had to really fuck us up before we started being willing to a) look past what we've been told and b) embrace the uncertainty of less-tested ideologies and the lack of quantifiable policy inherent to those.

 

[Pekola]

Some day, a clever rich person will say "I think of myself as a new Engels."

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They probably already think something along those lines.

 

[Deleted member 14459]

Some day, a clever rich person will say "I think of myself as a new Engels."

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Some already do - or stop just short by imagining "what would Engels write in FT?"

"Marx and Engels were revolutionaries, but also pragmatic. They wanted their ideas to be discussed as real alternatives. If they were alive today we are convinced they would promote activism as a powerful social force, if only the activists in various areas — financial, environmental, political, corporate and social — could unite. Think of the billionaires such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg, who already support philanthropic efforts to alleviate inequality...We also think Marx and Engels would update their views about private property"

https://www.ft.com/content/603b3498-2155-11e8-a895-1ba1f72c2c11

 

[Artdayne]

So ah that Bill Gates interview about Warren vs Trump...YIKES.

Maybe ya'll socialists really are 100% right.

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Yeah, it really is so predictable. The wealthy elite will generally side with those that will not take their money. If there are two candidates that will not take their money, they might favor the one who is more socially liberal.

I had to laugh a little while back when Warren Buffett said his preferred Democratic candidate was Michael Bloomberg. He at least said it's unlikely he'll vote for Trump in 2020 but who knows what that means because he did say he'd judge him on how the economy did and he'd have to see who he's running against.

It was the wealthy elite that put Hitler into power in Germany. Hitler lost the election, they feared that socialism was gaining popularity, as it was throughout Europe at that time, and knew that Hitler could keep that in check.

 

[Old_King_Coal]

A little look into the state of the UK for everyone, I thought you'd like this as it really demonstrates the bourgeois mindset that property is more important than human life.

 

[Mekanos]

So ah that Bill Gates interview about Warren vs Trump...YIKES.

Maybe ya'll socialists really are 100% right.

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The irony of billionaires claiming to be philanthropic is laughable.

 

[Deleted member 7130]

The irony of billionaires claiming to be philanthropic is laughable.

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"We've exploited your labor and robbed you of capital. Time to trickle down on you with philanthropy."

 

[Sibylus]

They're arguing because he said Professional he's ok.

Like...you shouldn't need to dodge that question ya'll.

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Everyone's flesh is expendable, save theirs. That's how our "betters" do.

 

[Deleted member 7130]

Sam Seder mentioned in passing that the lady in the photo that flipped off a Trump motorcade also won an election?

That's pretty neat

 

[Atrophis]

Remember when Capitalism made all your favourite things, but also it didn't?

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Wait, Current Affairs has a youtube channel? Subscribed.

 

[Deleted member 14459]

Sam Seder mentioned in passing that the lady in the photo that flipped off a Trump motorcade also won an election?

That's pretty neat

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it's a good story on many fronts: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/us/juli-briskman-virginia-election.html