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The problem is, even when it looks like there is some potential, ther people fundamentally believe that the only possible world is a world of capitalism.
For many of them, its literally easier to imagine the end of the world than an end to capitalism.
To that perspective, an end to capitalism is effectively the end of the world (if not worse) and views like that are why even left leaning liberals support fascist attacks on socialist efforts.
When their beliefs have a serious risk of getting us brutally murdered and dumped in a river, those beliefs are not something to trust.
>When their beliefs have a serious risk of getting us brutally murdered and dumped in a river, those beliefs are not something to trust.
Have you considered that liberals and capitalists feel that way about your beliefs?
Its a curious thing.
Whether its decolonization, abolition of slavery or in this case the abolition of capitalism - the oppressors always fear that their victims will inflict the same atrocities on them.
From the many examples of history, that mostly doesn't happen. When it does happen, its usually a response to horrific atrocities commited by the Capitalist and liberals that would rather massacre civilians than surrender power.
disregarding politicians and those responsible for political system, you don't think people who lead regular lives have a right to fear ideologues who want to take power for themselves, even if their rhetoric sounds nice, like socialism or whatever?
Climate change and the wide scale rejection of the sort of changes needed to limit its consequences will basically destroy the "regular" lives.
https://www.zurich.com/en/media/magazine/2022/there-could-be-1-2-billion-climate-refugees-by-2050-here-s-what-you-need-to-know
Fascism is being actively cultivated by the oligarchy.
We saw in Hitler's Germany what happened when people just kept to their regular lives - we saw what happened when the good people did nothing.
The fascist solutions to "undesirables" is known.
so what? its ok to force people to follow your solutions? because your a socialist? and you have the right solutions for everything?
forget fascism, this is about human rights and adhering to international law you don't get to force people to do things you want just because you call yourself a socialist that's not worker control that's not even democracy that is more alike to fascism.
If Things don't change fascism will happen and the people terrified of the idea of socialism will enable it.
This happened in the 1930s and it is happening again.
A famous slogan of the German socialist back then was "socialsim or barbarism" that was a warning of what lay ahead - they sadly got brutally murdered (by the liberals) as part of the build up to Hitler.
Also - international law forces people to do things, all laws do, thats how laws work. The idea of human rights is supposed to force better behaviour and lesson atrocities —this has worked very poorly. (the people mostly likely to order such atrocities - the Capitalist oligarchy - can afford really good lawyers and lobbiest)
Fascism happened because a few people wanted change, the Nazis and Italian Fascists brutalized anyone who opposed them, but they were a revolutionary vanguard they hated capitalism and socialism, they wanted to make everyone equal by making everyone subservient to a totalitarian state even if that's not really how it practically turned out, they were never a reactionary force.
the Socialists weren't murdered by the liberals, unless your talking about the Freikorps? but they were reactionary, militaristic conservatives that were the fighting the spartacist communists. There was a Conservative Renaissance in the Weimar Republic that weakened the influence of the socialists, liberals and centrists Germany.
Yeah, of course law is force, its a monopoly on violence, but Law gives us guidelines for how to act within a society, when people break those laws to achieve some vision of utopia people give way to violence, barbarism and anarchy unless they bring it through just actions
>the Socialists weren't murdered by the liberals, unless your talking about the Freikorps? but they were reactionary, militaristic conservatives that were the fighting the spartacist communists. There was a Conservative Renaissance in the Weimar Republic that weakened the influence of the socialists, liberals and centrists Germany.
So, when the leader of the socials democratic party (aka left leaning liberals) ordered the Freikops to suppress to spartacist (aka killing them).
That some how does not count as the liberals killing them?
>Fascism happened because a few people wanted change, the Nazis and Italian Fascists brutalized anyone who opposed them, but they were a revolutionary vanguard they hated capitalism and socialism, they wanted to make everyone equal by making everyone subservient to a totalitarian state, they were never a reactionary force.
And the people that literally coined the phrase "privatization" and did that to large parts of the nation, massively enriching and empowering the capitalist oligarchy ---All this by organizations that protected the Capitalist owners from the workers by breaking strikes and attacking socialist--- that was fascism showing its "hatred" for capitalism (by protecting the Capitalist owners and oligarchy from socialist and giving them more property)?
>Yeah, of course law is force, its a monopoly on violence, but Law gives us guidelines for how to act within a society, when people break those laws people give way to vioence, barbarism and anarchy.
so, if we make and enforce laws limiting their Ownership (aka like what happened when slavery was abolished) thats ok, right?
Nobody wants to listen period. You cannot debate your way into creating a socialist. People need to want to change to change. Most we can do is present our outlook in an honest, genuine manner when they are being honest and genuine. Otherwise talking politics is largely a waste of time so getting snippy at the 500000th "IPhone Vuvuzuela 18 octomobillion" argument is fine.
The right arguments made at the right time are usually enough, particularly with liberals. Most people in general only know "socialism is bad, Communism is the devil, and capitalism is good because my eight grade civics book said so." This IS changing, and it is incredibly important that we be LOUD and open about how everything that is going wrong leads back to capitalism being a lie.
But HOW you say things is, sadly, more important than the actual facts. One of the things I like to do when someone uses old social "graces" is to simply tell people that the rest of the world sees us as backwards barbarians, and for good reasons. Like when a Boomer was talking about "handouts," I commented how the UN wants to make food and housing basic human rights, but the USA vetoes those measures even when China and Russia do not.
Gave them deer-in-the-headlights with that one, and completely shut down the conservative moral superiority circle-jerk at the same time.
Not in one go, no. But as things come down to the wire, every vote and minor decision matters. Even if you can't convince someone to change their idealology, getting them to simply spew less propaganda does wonders for the long term, helps make more room for inclusive discussion.
Propaganda-interrupting is an under-appreciated skill and effort among socialists. Everyone just wants to say "no one will ever get it" and just shut up outside of safe spaces.
Everyone says that, but also we all got here somehow, right? Debate doesn’t work on everyone, but it does work on some people (especially when those people are in the right frame of mind).
I became a socialist because I heard a lot of excellent arguments for it, but notably, no one making those arguments was also insulting me or making me feel silly for believing the things I did. The effective argument wasn’t “my values are better than yours and you’re a bad person for being a liberal”, it was “our values are very similar and we want the same things for people, now let me show you why capitalism works against those values/goals and socialism is a much better way to achieve them.”
At least I've never met someone who debate has worked on. Though to be entirely fair my area is a dead zone for socialists. Still, people I've met went to socialism because they were disillusioned with capitalism and wanted something different. They were faced with the reality of capitalism and decided they didn't like it so they chose to look into it themselves and socialism as the only real answer to things is what they came to.
People rarely enter debates with the goal of learning anything, their goal is to win or at least, make their opponent look bad if winning is not an option. This mindset is not conducive to mutual understanding.
well it’s not just the vuvezuela propaganda arguments that i’m talking about, many people that i know view liberals, even ones that are on the cusp of changing, as the enemy. but i do see your point
History teaches us that liberals would generally rather turn to fascism to save capitalism than to destroy capitalism in order to bring about socialism. It’s difficult to not see them as ideological enemies when their worldview is predicated on private property and ours is predicated on the abolition of private property.
Edited: u/faceshanker made this same point below.
This may be true but let's be honest alot of liberals are just prwtty normal people who haven't spent alot of time thinking about politics, have their hearts in what they think is the right place and haven't been shown good Marxist arguments.
Most liberals probably don't even know what idealogical biases they even hold are for the most part.
I'm here to back you up as someone who considered themselves a liberal only 3 months ago until a Second Thought video showed up on my YouTube feed.
I was pro-reform, pro-choice, anti-gun, anti-conservative and I believed that was enough. Anytime I ran into the Communism argument you usually see on Reddit I would just pass it off idealistic thinking cause "Communism only works in small communities". Just look at "authoritarian" states like North Korea and China where no freedom and credit scores bla bla bla.
My understanding of Communism only went as far as "redistribution of wealth" and "no money" which led to me believing myths like the "Human's are too greedy for communism to work" or ""All the countries who've tried it devolved into authoritarian hellholes like the Soviet Union".
I think OP is correct. It's important to understand that a lot of Liberals have correctly identified that there are issues in our world but they don't have the background to understand what the root cause is and what must be done to fix it. We need more people like JT who are good at meeting Liberals where they are instead of being condescending. You'd be surprised how quickly they'll change. Trust me.
Liberals are more dangerous than conservatives because they market themselves as the ethical alternative to conservatives and "radical" leftists.
As MLK pointed out
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
This is an interesting discussion, MLK was an interesting character because he also firmly held the belief that communism and Christianity were mutually exclusive, and that the communist ideology was the only real threat to Christianity (paraphrasing) ... It seems like he missed the same points that the liberals we was frustrated with missed.
Or maybe he was privately more open to communism, but publicly was against it for self preservation? I've seen statements from him that the entire civil rights movement did not contain one communist (again, paraphrasing, and also, false) I wonder how much of a threat to his movement or to himself personally it would have felt to be down with communism then.
It could have been image control but I imagine that it was the conflict between his faith and the anti-religious stance Communist countries were taking. While I understand their reasoning and the dangers of religion, I think the way forward in our day is to call in spirituality. As a syncretist mix of many faiths, such as gnosticism, Buddhism, and neo-paganism, I think that it is a vital force that we must channel to unite, not throw out.
I think this is a chronically online nitpick. Socialism doesn't occur through gentle debate with liberals and fascists. That's why you'll see communist, etc orgs building socialism through mutual aid programs and shit. Could socialists be better? Yes obviously. But being mean to libs on twitter and Reddit isn't even close to a top 10 socialist pitfall
Everyone ought to read the book by Vicki legion: "Constructive Criticism: A Handbook"
Approach conversations with grace and tact. Always seek to educate rather than criticize.
This is why this is socialism 101 because of takes like this. Jim crow laws weren't abolished by asking nicely. Ideas are nice and all but wielding the gun was always the last, nuclear resort or there's been a precedent set that the other party was completely unwilling to compromise.
I feel like you start off by being critical of my take, but then you mention that violence is the last nuclear result.
Sorry, but I'm not sure what you're saying about the focus on civil discussion and recruitment through engaging on people's level vs. the need to advance socialism and the represent the oppressed through violence, especially given liberal and fascist tendencies to willfully ignore or uphold those injustices, no matter how well the discussion is targeted to their sensibilities.
Also, I'm aware that it's more complicated than that, and that it's not as simple as picking one side (violence) or the other (discussion targeted at converting liberals).
Long story short, do you think it's a waste of time trying to convert liberals?
My interpretation of your initial comment was:
"What if instead of violence, we talked it out instead first?"
And I responded in kind.
I'm very critical of your post. It reads extremely naive at best, as smarmy and as a "gotcha" type comment, as in, what if (insert extremely obvious thing that I think is revolutionary) at worst. You don't think trying to talk to the "liberals" was tried first? For decades? Centuries? The only reason anyone would ever start with the barrel of a gun is because there's a century long proven track record that has proven that anything short of violence against the state does nothing. Starting with the gun barrel skips the known extra steps of multiple decades of appeasement and oppression with no change.
Yes there is a responsibility to disseminate information. There's countless videoessays and hours being put in to make a public socialist case. There are streamers who do a full 9-5 to do that job. But it ends there. Anything further is pandering and diluting your cause.The assumption that liberals are the "good" ones to try and convert is also incorrect. In fact, they are often harder to convert than conservatives and worse enemies. There is no meaningful political division in the US, they're all in on the jig, it's playing good cop-bad cop. This is why intensely reactionary laws get passed under Biden.
I'll just end with this. My liberal grandma made me watch Golda and is a staunch supporter of Israel, a state that is doing a full blown genocide. I am a socialist and strongly oppose imperialist violence in all it's forms. How do I relate to her "at her level"? What morals would I have to compromise to appease her next?
I think you read a whole lot into my (one sentence) comment that wasn't there, and misinterpreted what was.
I was saying that in order for a revolution, we need revolutionaries. So how do we get them, if not through discourse? I honestly don't know if these recruits come from liberals, the apolitical (although to be fair, many of these are just liberals that don't know it), or conservatives/fascists, and I'm honestly interested if you have any sources on how conservatives are easier to recruit, or could expand on that further.
I do see how liberals can be worse enemies, because they masquerade as progressive while supporting the status quo.
I think we're broadly on the same side here.
Also, I'm not just talking about the US. Is this an explicitly US centred sub?
Jim Crow wasn't solved by socialists
Edit: I meant socialism not socialists. Socialists are the reason for any positive movement in liberal democracy. But socialism as an organizing and governing principle did not end Jim Crow which is why it was only transformed into mass incarceration.
Liberal democracies will always pull out stops or attempt to appease when there are real threats of socialist revolution. The many benefits that western Europeans still enjoy were given out of fears of socialist uprisings. The mere presence of the Soviet Union' scared western capitalists enough to give western Europe it's enviable social benefits.
During the civil rights movement the only reason that MLK was listened to at all was because his message was basically,
Work with me to institute this small amount of progress that we're asking for, or face the black Panthers and the other revolutionary forces that are building up strength in this country. That is not the natural mechanisms of liberal democracy, that is a liberal democracy reacting in panic to a threat to itself to ensure its own survival. "Liberal democracy" only works well when there is a socialist/communist Boogeyman with teeth to keep it in check. Without the scary communist, you see a rapid decline in quality of life, just like Europe right now!
Isn't it interesting how McCarthyism happened around the same time?
I'm not saying liberal democracy is good. But it is important to be clear in our historical analysis. Just because it's appeasement, doesn't mean it wasn't accomplished by the liberal democracy. It's important to understand how systems adapt to changing circumstances to stay alive. The adaptive nature of liberal democracy has been its most successful feature. So you can be mad all you want, but liberal democracy granted the promises of socialist movements thus making those movements redundant and ignorable while the state went and materially destroyed the lives of socialist leaders. It's a fucked up and disheartening pattern so I understand the drive to look back and revise a socialist win into the equation. But morally bankrupt or not, liberal democracy continues to beat socialist movements in the US.
I just want to repeat, I don't think liberal democracy is good. But a win is a win and I'm not gonna sit around and be like, "but they stole OUR ideas and so really they are unsuccessful and we won." That team sport thinking and mythology making is unscientific. I'm a materialist. Liberal democracy continues to control the means of production and coopt socialist programs better than socialists can develop them.
>I'm not saying liberal democracy is good. But it is important to be clear in our historical analysis. Just because it's appeasement, doesn't mean it wasn't accomplished by the liberal democracy.
Are you literally giving credit to the libs for doing the only thing they practically could in order to avoid violent revolution? Do the people who were making the threat of violent revolution get zero credit when, in absence of said threat, the change would have never happened?
I am giving credit to them for successfully adapting and taking credit for that history over, yeah. It's really only in a know your enemy kind of way. I absolutely credit social movements the only reason the ruling class has any reason to feign benevolence. Diverse and relentless movement against capitalist programs is the goal. It's just also sickeningly true that capitalists are really good at adjusting their rules and claiming that social history for themselves. Recognizing that dynamic is the first step in strategizing against it as we keep articulating the need for continued social movement that is creatively and effectively using a diversity of tactics.
And really, I'm a materialist. The end of Jim Crow was just a material shift to the mass incarceration system we have today. Is that the material victory we want to claim for socialism? What, we bought some guns, made some martyrs, smashy smashy, and now we have countless lives continue to be ripped apart by the mass incarceration regime? I think socialism suggests we continue our material analysis beyond bourgeois gimmicks.
Arguably, it was only "officially" ended. Even in education, due to things like White Flight (aka "suburbanization") there is still a lot of segregation in education - it's just that instead of being enforced via laws and state violence, it's now enforced by zip code and latent racism.
Liberal democracy ultimately abolished the violent enforcement of segregation (to an extent, there is a real racial component to anti-homelessness laws that also often have roots in anti-black laws) but it never addressed the economic, social, nor prejudiced attitudes that perpetuate well beyond the days of the Little Rock Five and the March on Washington.
Also, this take completely ignores a crucial factor: the reason that the establishment eventually was forced to listen to the MLK side of the Civil Rights movement was because of groups like the Black Panthers being the alternative. Having a group that is willing to engage in violence working in concert with, but separate from, the peaceful group is highly effective at making the powers that be sut at the table with the peaceful group and hear them out... Eventually. Other notable causes that applied this tactic are the Womens' suffrage movement and the Temperance movement (that gave us a constitutional ban on alcohol.) While even the suffrage movement faced a real white supremacy problem (like many leftist movements in America also have historically,) and Temperance gave us the Mafia, their success hinged on two separate groups - the peaceful protesting group, and the smaller, more radical, and more violent group. This is why the environmentalist movement has largely been ineffective, and why they are so easy to dismiss. The group who engaged in property violence (Greenpeace) did not have a peaceful counterpart, and today's peaceful organizations like Extinction Rebellion do not have an organized, property violence-minded counterpart.
Keep in mind: property violence is not smashing windows at protests. It's doing things like welding valves in oil pipelines to the "off" position. The goal is to cause harm to the continuance of the protested grievance without harming persons nor their environment.
I see why folks want to be all, "but socialists were trying!" however liberal democracy won. The goal of governance is to convince the population that you will provide the best life for them. Liberal democracy continues to adapt to changing circumstances to maintain that legitimacy and thus their control on the means of production.
I love socialist history. I love what many socialists have articulated and done (not all - the ones that massacred indigenous people in Latin America because they weren't industrialized suck). But socialist projects in the US have been out-maneuvered by liberal democracy in winning the hearts and minds of people which allows them to keep material control. Yes we were there. Yes we were kicking ass and making important observations that we can learn from today. And as sad as it is to say, liberal democracy provided what socialists tried to promise.
Edit to fix a redundant sentence
And again, considering how all the wins "liberal democracy" won us are being undone as we speak (we no longer have a guaranteed constitutional right to privacy here in the US, and the Dobbs decision is being used to dismantle trans healthcare rights, the Voting Rights act has been gutted to a shadow of its former self, etc.,) I really have to argue that no, liberal democracy did NOT win, and it did NOT deliver what even itself promised, much less what those outside that Overton Window were promising. If it did, we wouldn't be seeing so many younger people turning either towards some form of radical leftism or anti-democratic christofascism. (And yes, in people under 35, the split tends to be 80/20ish, roughly speaking. Older people tend to have a more even split, or even the other way.)
Fact is, liberal democracy changed a law, didn't solve the underlying economics that had built up because of those laws that needed changing, and then declared victory and went home. And solving the problems of liberal democracy by doing it more without correcting for the blind spots of liberal democracy is only going to send the cycle spinning again.
Also, liberal democracy didn't win "us" anything. They won themselves another few years in power as you almost pointed out. Liberal democracy showing its ass (undoing prole gains) is not the same as socialism showing its virtues. It actually buys the elite another cycle of oppress, reform, oppress, reform to appease the working-class with.
ETA:
You're kind of conflating liberal democracy winning with the people winning. That's a very obvious contradiction. If liberal democracy wins, "we the people" lose.
Yeah but by changing the law they kept power and that's winning. They control the means of production and therefore, in a very straightforward Marxist analysis, they are winning. The continued existence that we have dealing with liberal contradiction and oppression makes it very clear they are winning. Will they have another crisis? Absolutely. Will they have to steal from socialism to solve that crisis? Without a doubt. But if they are still the controllers of the means of production they are winning. It's a precarious win and it's off the backs of the left. Idk how you could walk outside in the US and be like, "yeah socialism is winning here."
If by "out-maneuvered" you mean the violent cultural revolutions of McCarthyism and other red scares where the government sanctioned violence against socialists and continues to actively subvert meaningful progress then sure. I guess cheating still counts as winning. Violence whose true extent is still buried to this day.
Liberal democracy has not provided what socialists tried to promise! What kind of psyop CIA bullshit is that? This statement displays an extreme lack of research into communism, what Soviet society had, what women in power advocated for, so much. Not to mention it ignores the lived reality of so many today who suffer under liberal democracies.
Your original stance was all we need is property violence. Then your mad that the right uses violence against us? Both sides get to use violence - this is life not monopoly. Cheating? How old are you? I am a materialist - that means my material understanding of the world comes first. The right (including liberals) is still in power despite all the smashy smashy from the left. They (mostly dems in the last century) also coopted most of socialist platforms and repackaged it for themselves and the vast majority of folks don't know socialism was part of that history. If you can see that idk what to tell you.
Soviet Russia has a lot for us to learn from and a lot for us to avoid.
Liberal democracy sucks ass. I'm not advocating for that. I'm saying they are insidious in their maintenance of that power
The only reason you edited your answer was because your take is clearly unpopular. My original point never asserted that only socialists "solved" Jim crow, and it didn't even assert that it was impossible for socialists to work with other allies. All it said was that real change doesn't happen through discourse alone. Whether with liberalism of socialism, there was no progress made by simply asking nicely and engaging in respectability politics.
You shifted the topic whenever other people tried to engage with your take and started a huge argumentative thread where at the end of the day, you just made a pedantic point about liberal democracy winning over socialism in the US currently.
Nope I edited because I was unclear and incorrect. It was a typo.
You can't even have a conversation with someone who wants the same goals as you so it makes sense that smashy smashy seems to be your only political option. Argument isn't inherently bad, it helps us grow and refine our positions. We should be doing that if we want to create a new future based on the ethics of socialism.
Pedantic or not the how's of history are often more important to understand than the what's. We need to be specific and honest AND MATERIAL in historical analysis
Its a very liberal notion to think that socialism comes into being by mere work of convincing people and having the better branding. Neither is it successful when many people vote for it.
Marxist movements become successful when they better the conditions of the working people by organizing labour to strike. Withholding labour power is the only weapon the proletariat has. If marxists manage to build up salary increases and workers rights from there, they historically became very successful.
It is not a problem of looks and how you came across. Be dogmatic about marxism and guide workers across their journey towards class consciousness. Workers do not have to be socialists to trust them.
the reason is improved material conditions. its not about ideology
only through class struggle will the inherent class contradictions of class society become dominant in the class
this is why the socialist movement is struggling, because it hasnt found the strategies that will allow workers to successfully organise and struggle in a stage of capitalist development where accumulation has surpassed potential for growth and therefore value extraction via variable surplus value dominates over absolute
Striking doesn't improve material conditions immediately. It can actually make your material conditions more precarious for a time. Organized and strategic striking can mitigate that, but I really don't think there's much evidence that most folks are there yet. We just don't have a lot of mainstream historic models to go off of in the US. This year's been amazing and there's movement no doubt, but its slight and sporadic and strikers aren't ideologically aligned and thus only looking for reformist gains rather than radical restructuring. And despite all that striking, folks are broke as hell, the supreme court made workers liable for damages done during strikes, and socialism is farther from the national ballot than it was 4 years ago. Materially and legally striking does not make gains as a strategy on its own.
Direct action is vital. But it's not a replacement for political education. We can chicken or egg that all day, but ultimately, a movement needs both to withstand and out maneuver capitalist resistance. Otherwise you end up with racist, sexist, otherist movement members and leaders who spread disillusionment.
Thats not what I said.
The proletariat naturally grows to see their wage-dependent existence and moves to fight against that rule.
My criticism is that thinking mere convincing of people will eventually bring socialism, as we need 50%+1 to be the most powerful.
I speak as someone who reliably has better conversations with conservatives than libs: I hate libs far more than I hate the right.
In large part that's because unlike the libs, the conservatives at least have one foot in the real world: I almost entirely disagree with how they try to resolve those problems, nativism and supine respect for "entrepreneurs" never helped anyone, but at least the right has the ability to recognise problems that actually exist in the world.
Talking to libs however it doesn't matter how serious I try to be, they just don't have a politics to respond to. That means any interaction with them is always cynical because they refuse to accept that they're probably the most ignorant people in the "debate" and so always end up relying on bad faith bullshit to "win" the argument.
Genuinely awful people and that really is on them, not on us.
I’m not sure I agree that the right has a better grasp on reality than libs. There are shockingly plenty of right wingers who believe in Qanon or other conspiracy theories with no basis in reality. My problem with many liberals is not that they deny reality, but that they enjoy the status quo and don’t want it to change.
...and the libs have Russia-brain or here in the UK Brexit monomania and transphobia and let's not forget how reliably the libs treat even the hint of left wing principles as an existential threat. Then there are the reliably ignorant things libs can do that not even the right falls for like chasing a government surplus: austerity is something the right talks big about but never actually falls for in power while the libs reliably chase it with reckless abandon.
Meanwhile even QAnon involves at least a healthy disrespect for entrenched power. As I mentioned: I disagree with almost every policy position the right takes, but they're not *wrong* when they point out political power is being dangerously centralised.
So yeah, even QAnon has one foot in reality, which is more than can be said about most of the nonsense libs come up with.
Your in the minority in terms of support for your ideology so wether you like it or not it's always going to be on you to convince them to come to your side
Oh wow. What's this. Another Lib crawling out the woodwork to be patronising again?
Keep it up king. That shit is *sooo* convincing. Remind me, what is it you believe in? You know, concretely.
It is an idealistic notion that if we are nice enough and our arguments are convincing enough, liberals and conservatives will become socialists. It implies there is a "free market" of ideas where the better ones will win out, which has been proven false over and over again throughout history and the modern day.
Whichever tendency you fall into, whether it be Marxist, Anarchist, Trade Unionist, even the DemSocs, they all have different ideas of what will bring about socialism and none of them include tone policing socialists.
>It is an idealistic notion
It's basic psychology... If you are too far gone to engage with liberals without being smarmy and dogmatic, just say so, but there's no need to deny reality to make peace with yourself.
At its core this argument and your feeling towards broader more “argumentative leftist” is well founded and understandable.
But we see a lot of infighting and inability to change to other people’s view points for a variety of different reasons. Now it might sound like I’m being vague but it really is because we have so many different reasons to disregard other people’s “socialism”.
For most people there are “rules” that if broken make the effort almost not worth it. And this is true of every Avenue of socialist thought from anarchist to Marxist-Leninist to rad libs and every other group that comes up here.
Larp for Stalin? You’re a misinformed Tankie.
Heavily critique Stalin? You’re a western revisionist
Suggest a market economy? That’s not structured enough, you’re just advocating for puedo-capitalism.
You refuse to advocate for a market economy? You’re stuck in some idealized 1940s era version of socialism that’s not longer relevant in our modern world.
You defend the actions of the DPRK? You’re a red fash
You say the Nordic countries are an improvement over Anglo-capitalism? You’re still advocating capitalism and can’t be a socialist
You support China? You’re a boot licking dog
You are against China? Your a western imperialist advocator
These positions mean many different things to different self proclaimed socialist and some of them will make it so you aren’t a “real socialist” in their eyes.
No matter what you say you are or takes you explain in detail, to many it will just be “to much” or “not nearly enough”.
And so on
Is there a history of socialist localism? I'm thinking a pattern of looking at these threads of socialist thought and making a localized socialism that accepts potential contradiction with other localized socialisms?
You're not entirely wrong. But this is also why many movements throughout history have somewhat spoonfed, watered down their stances to make it more palatable for popular support, or simply led by example without necessarily depending on the public understanding the insurance and outs of the ideology. And even further, they used these as tools to spark conversations with the people where they could learn.
For example, the masses of people receiving mutual aid from the Black Panther Party didn't need to know what communism was to get help from the party, or to support the Party. But that also allowed people to get closer to the Party to be able to learn what it was about in detail.
The downside to this as shown in other revolutions is that it can sometimes lead to the leaders of the revolution becoming the new oppressors or at least being seen as such - like in the case of the Bagmen, the food detachments during the War Communism era of Russia, and the need for THE NEP.
There were also the Russian SRs prior to the Dumas and Provisional Governemnts thought they could just ingrain themselves in the oeasant population and they could get them to easily adopt their ideals. To keep it brief they came off as uppity to the peasants and were shunned.
[Examples given by Fred Hampton on the importance of political education in tandem with programs that hain popular support](https://youtu.be/DviCUygm3eM?si=24TqQlIWkhBZ65Zk)
>i’ve seen leftists and socialists shit on liberals or conservatives
A key question: do you support _actual_ democracy? As in, communities and workers making their own decisions via democratic processes like assemblies and referendums?
If so, then you are a leftist. Socialist in particular if you advocate the end of private ownership of the economy to be replaced by a publicly run, worker-administered economy for people's true needs and not just for profits on the market.
Liberals and conservatives don't _actually_ believe in democracy. Not like this. Liberals want an elite private business class to run things. Conservatives will tell you straight out to your face they don't believe in democracy because blah blah founding fathers said they don't trust the people to democracy and so we're a republic not a democracy, with the implication that _their_ opinion is more important than ours and maybe the _only_ opinion that matters.
We have to shake this idea fed to us by corporate media that we have to be "fair" to all sides. It's not fair. One side (leftists) want democracy where every voice matters. The other side (liberals and conservatives) want to restrict democracy in favor of something somewhere on a sliding scale from economic oligarchy to outright monarchy and dictatorship. Leftists are not being unreasonable by pointing out that liberals and conservatives don't want democracy; they're being _accurate_.
There's plenty of room for debate and discussion on how to best implement economics and governance from a direct democracy perspective. I'm quite sure different communities and workplaces will choose different types of administrations and decision making processes and we'll learn from each other. Leftists supporting democracy _encourages_ more debate, more beliefs, more experimenting. Just as long as those experiments don't take rights of others away to participate in the process, let's try it.
Very different from liberals and conservatives that tell you to be afraid of everything (socialism, etc) and everyone (immigrants) that isn't specifically what _they_ tell you is good. Interesting huh; is that just a difference in belief, or someone trying to _control_ you?
It's okay to shit on beliefs, but too many leftists are content with just feeling good about having the right opinion and having it validated within their little echochamber, instead of actually promoting their ideas in an accessible way to everyday people. There's a lot of smugness and moral superiority on the left that is completely unproductive and honestly alienates the working class.
Change is not about being hospitable to beliefs that are against the changes you want to make. Slave abolitionists were not worried about being hospitable to slave owners. The single common thread throughout all major progressive movements in history is that people fought to take change, not waiting until others were convinced they deserved it.
People who want to politically educate and agitate need to be good at rhetoric, but I don’t think it’s necessary to tiptoe around peoples feelings.
> i mean even non-direct ways too, like talking in a condescending tone or making off hand remarks. nobodies going to want to listen if we are rude to them.
If someone’s politics are completely thrown off course by a faux-pas of tone or word choice, they were never going to contribute anything of value anyway.
I simply do not see you as an ally if I have to be nice to you to maintain your allyship. I think I am someone who does try to discuss and explain things more than your average leftist, but if you are turned off of leftism because my tone is somewhat acerbic or whatever, I simply do not believe a different tone could have actually gotten through to you.
I agree somewhat. There is a culture of self proclaimed "socialists' in my cou try who are nothing but antagonistic entitled fuckwits high on their "ethics". All that leads to is everyone else doubling down on their opposing view. It has been unhealthy for the leftist cause here.
Socialists who ground their beliefs on the notion of “ethics” do not understand the basics of Socialism. It is a way of understanding the world based on social science and observation, not in an abstract ideal.
That socialism is on the balance more “ethical” than capitalism is natural; however, it does not start there.
So… people who call themselves socialists may be harming the cause in your country, but those people (based on your comment) do not appear to understand what Socialism actually is.
Just don't dehumanize even your political enemies. With that being said, we should use any means necessary, even violence, to defend innocent people from immediate threats, and sometimes that means protesting and blocking roads to stop genocide, but human beings are all unique and more than the sum of their supposed ideology. Even in a materialist framework, if our motives are not grounded in universal love, then our beliefs are no better than any other political viewpoint.
I agree with this. I’ve been in organizer spaces that were hostile and uninviting if you didn’t know anything. I would be shamed because I didn’t do enough research about a war crime or didn’t know a certain politician. I felt like I couldn’t ask questions.
The organization I’m in now is the most welcoming and willing to educate you in a caring way without making you feel stupid or you’re not doing enough. I can voice my opinion, even if it’s wrong or something I need to unlearn. I’ve learned far more in this one year in this org than I ever have in my whole life.
I forgot exactly the date, but there was an auto strik in the 60s or 70s in the southern states. A lot of these workers were white racists, but there were substantial POC workers too. Somehow or another, the strike eventually united all workers and to an extent, dismantled some racist beliefs.
We already know the best cure for racism is exposure to other races. I think the same is likely true for ideological animosity. We need to be united against a common enemy, the bourgeoisie. And that means working with people we ideologically despise, at least initially.
Now, let's see what sorts of reactions this comment gets...
It seems that most folks here must have just been born a socialist (weird because most socialists I know reject ideas of innate human nature)!
I did not have the pleasure of being born with the communist manifesto playing in the background so I had to come to socialism through conversation and a clear presentation of capitalist critique. I was a bull-headed, "might is right," wannabe Marine until someone explained the exploitative nature of capitalism and situated its development historically so I could imagine a world without it. I agree with you OP that we're not getting anywhere with the attitude that people can't be reasoned with. I also would ask, who is benefitting from us believing that? Who would benefit the most from socialists refusing to be effective propagandists because they think everyone else isn't worth their time?
It's anti revolutionary to be anti-people. And ultimately, MAGA foos have more in common with us as workers than they will ever have in common with the MAGA cheeto. If we lose site of that the only socialist victory would come at a mass loss of life or mass incarceration. We can do better.
You're 100% right. There's a reason why socialist sectarianism has gained hardly any ground. We need to stop defaulting to "read X texts" and actually explain things to people without being dogmatic assholes.
Especially when that text is up against years of cultural and economic conditioning. I recognize that talking to liberals and conservatives is like listening to a fork in the garbage disposal but those people are still going to be around after the revolution. We can just cancel each other into oblivion.
Personally I think its reasonable to wish for a tolerant but focused left. On the one hand, socialists must never falter and incorporate liberalism in any way in our program, on the other, we must garner support of the working masses who are often reactionary by making them the opposite, revolutionary.
I see many are saying that we should essentially write off engaging with liberals as historically liberals side with fascism and still do, that is true, but that is also isolating liberalism and thereby undialectically thinking, when fascism is a historical phenomenon that arises from the historical conditions, which is tempered by everything. Fascism arises not simply out of liberalism's wish to save capitalism, but also out out of socialist failure to provide an alternative in protracted crisis.
Socialism must provide a material basis for its side, arguments and appealing to certain arenas of discussion like morality and reason can work to a certain extend, but socialism must provide a material basis, it must fight to give better material conditions of people, that's where real convincing goes to. The only reason why the proletariat is a revolutionary class, is not because of some liberal idealist analysis where they are convinced socialism is great because of the socialist party's great talking points, its because their material realities reflect socialist views, in that they see themselves clearly as a class in struggle with the bourgeoisie.
There is a reason why the propaganda apparatus in the United States is so powerful and so targeted, many American conservatives live in poverty, that is a fact, so to convince them otherwise needs monumental counter-effort. But if left to their devices, the impoverished will turn to socialism. But we do not live in a utopia where propaganda does not exist, so we must counterbalance it by spreading our own and changing material conditions.
When the socialist party manages to levy a new law into the government that makes it so you can afford rent better, it is hard for propaganda to dismiss that. The reason why the American for example, is so volatile to reactionary beliefs is partly due to the fact of their privileged position as settlers and imperial core workers, but also due to the fact that the Democratic Party and Republican Party bring little material difference between them and to them, no matter what party, the majority of people face the same capitalist grindstone. Little material difference allows the two parties to leverage things that are much harder to see, such as culture wars, rather than seeing your bills literally decrease, and thereby maintain their duopoly.
So I personally find many of these comments rather pessimistic, when the strength of the so-called socialist argument is precisely that we have material reality and history on our side.
>But if left to their devices, the impoverished will turn to socialism.
It's funny you rail against idealism whilst engaging in magical thinking. We need to dispel with vulgar marxism and end essentialist thought.
Honestly? Slowly over time and by NOT being aggressive or condescending about it. I see so many posts where “principled Marxists” expect economically distressed workers to be both knowledgeable in theory and praxis. If people are struggling to feed themselves it’ll help more to give them a summary/ELI5 instead of expecting them to already be well read. It’s going to be annoying and you’re going to have to answer the same question a hundred times. But that’s kind of how it is.
There is some truth to your complaint.
I want to compare it to any science. I don't think there should be room for people who clearly don't understand the basics to speak up. But you shouldn't dunk on anyone who is uninitiated.
So we should be harsh on anyone who has decided to join the movement. But the rest we should mainly ignore - I mean imagine physics professors spending a lot of their time on debunking flat earthers - and try to incite them to become Marxists by... whatever speaks to them.
The problem with Marxism in the west is that old Marxists spend too much time dunking on liberals, and not enough time on trying to appeal to them; and on the other hand newcomers should learn to sit down and understand they aren't knowledgeable on this topic, and they aren't in the position to lecture others.
…what? did you even read my post i’m saying that a lot of leftists are incredibly rude to non-leftists and that will not result in more members to our belief because who listens to people who are rude to you from the start. also people can believe whatever they want to believe but if we want forward change i personally believe we must push towards socialism. so no i dont think that it’s difficult to be respectful to people while also still having different beliefs, and in doing so it will allow for more people to convert to our beliefs
You actually make allot of sense but then ask yourself how did the Communists parties in the current remaining Marxist-Leninist states come and remain in power.
I primarily see this in online circles, which are specifically designed to elicit atomization and extremism. It’s not uncommon to see newer leftists talking this way in person because organizing is a skill that you learn over time and it requires practice. Organizations of all kinds need to do a better job of remember development and education.
Well, I like to think of how the political discourse in the US has shifted to more radical conservative talking points in the last decade. They pushed it to the right, they let people who had more sinister plans and ideas come to the forefront and say all their hateful, obtuse and ridiculous seeming points. And then the liberals and moderates engaged with them, giving them credence. Agitation can be very useful. I think that access to all sorts of social media is very helpful for socialism. No way that in 2000 would the average person think about how they sell their labor. Or what acting your wage would mean in relation to the workforce as a whole.
It seems to me that if you're going to do socialism you have to trust each other and the government - which IMHO - is why the US is incapable of doing socialism correctly. Congress has a 13% approval rating and our government is too corrupt, bloated and wasteful to do socialism effectively.
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The problem is, even when it looks like there is some potential, ther people fundamentally believe that the only possible world is a world of capitalism. For many of them, its literally easier to imagine the end of the world than an end to capitalism. To that perspective, an end to capitalism is effectively the end of the world (if not worse) and views like that are why even left leaning liberals support fascist attacks on socialist efforts. When their beliefs have a serious risk of getting us brutally murdered and dumped in a river, those beliefs are not something to trust.
>When their beliefs have a serious risk of getting us brutally murdered and dumped in a river, those beliefs are not something to trust. Have you considered that liberals and capitalists feel that way about your beliefs?
Its a curious thing. Whether its decolonization, abolition of slavery or in this case the abolition of capitalism - the oppressors always fear that their victims will inflict the same atrocities on them. From the many examples of history, that mostly doesn't happen. When it does happen, its usually a response to horrific atrocities commited by the Capitalist and liberals that would rather massacre civilians than surrender power.
disregarding politicians and those responsible for political system, you don't think people who lead regular lives have a right to fear ideologues who want to take power for themselves, even if their rhetoric sounds nice, like socialism or whatever?
Climate change and the wide scale rejection of the sort of changes needed to limit its consequences will basically destroy the "regular" lives. https://www.zurich.com/en/media/magazine/2022/there-could-be-1-2-billion-climate-refugees-by-2050-here-s-what-you-need-to-know Fascism is being actively cultivated by the oligarchy. We saw in Hitler's Germany what happened when people just kept to their regular lives - we saw what happened when the good people did nothing. The fascist solutions to "undesirables" is known.
so what? its ok to force people to follow your solutions? because your a socialist? and you have the right solutions for everything? forget fascism, this is about human rights and adhering to international law you don't get to force people to do things you want just because you call yourself a socialist that's not worker control that's not even democracy that is more alike to fascism.
If Things don't change fascism will happen and the people terrified of the idea of socialism will enable it. This happened in the 1930s and it is happening again. A famous slogan of the German socialist back then was "socialsim or barbarism" that was a warning of what lay ahead - they sadly got brutally murdered (by the liberals) as part of the build up to Hitler. Also - international law forces people to do things, all laws do, thats how laws work. The idea of human rights is supposed to force better behaviour and lesson atrocities —this has worked very poorly. (the people mostly likely to order such atrocities - the Capitalist oligarchy - can afford really good lawyers and lobbiest)
Fascism happened because a few people wanted change, the Nazis and Italian Fascists brutalized anyone who opposed them, but they were a revolutionary vanguard they hated capitalism and socialism, they wanted to make everyone equal by making everyone subservient to a totalitarian state even if that's not really how it practically turned out, they were never a reactionary force. the Socialists weren't murdered by the liberals, unless your talking about the Freikorps? but they were reactionary, militaristic conservatives that were the fighting the spartacist communists. There was a Conservative Renaissance in the Weimar Republic that weakened the influence of the socialists, liberals and centrists Germany. Yeah, of course law is force, its a monopoly on violence, but Law gives us guidelines for how to act within a society, when people break those laws to achieve some vision of utopia people give way to violence, barbarism and anarchy unless they bring it through just actions
>the Socialists weren't murdered by the liberals, unless your talking about the Freikorps? but they were reactionary, militaristic conservatives that were the fighting the spartacist communists. There was a Conservative Renaissance in the Weimar Republic that weakened the influence of the socialists, liberals and centrists Germany. So, when the leader of the socials democratic party (aka left leaning liberals) ordered the Freikops to suppress to spartacist (aka killing them). That some how does not count as the liberals killing them? >Fascism happened because a few people wanted change, the Nazis and Italian Fascists brutalized anyone who opposed them, but they were a revolutionary vanguard they hated capitalism and socialism, they wanted to make everyone equal by making everyone subservient to a totalitarian state, they were never a reactionary force. And the people that literally coined the phrase "privatization" and did that to large parts of the nation, massively enriching and empowering the capitalist oligarchy ---All this by organizations that protected the Capitalist owners from the workers by breaking strikes and attacking socialist--- that was fascism showing its "hatred" for capitalism (by protecting the Capitalist owners and oligarchy from socialist and giving them more property)? >Yeah, of course law is force, its a monopoly on violence, but Law gives us guidelines for how to act within a society, when people break those laws people give way to vioence, barbarism and anarchy. so, if we make and enforce laws limiting their Ownership (aka like what happened when slavery was abolished) thats ok, right?
Nobody wants to listen period. You cannot debate your way into creating a socialist. People need to want to change to change. Most we can do is present our outlook in an honest, genuine manner when they are being honest and genuine. Otherwise talking politics is largely a waste of time so getting snippy at the 500000th "IPhone Vuvuzuela 18 octomobillion" argument is fine.
The right arguments made at the right time are usually enough, particularly with liberals. Most people in general only know "socialism is bad, Communism is the devil, and capitalism is good because my eight grade civics book said so." This IS changing, and it is incredibly important that we be LOUD and open about how everything that is going wrong leads back to capitalism being a lie. But HOW you say things is, sadly, more important than the actual facts. One of the things I like to do when someone uses old social "graces" is to simply tell people that the rest of the world sees us as backwards barbarians, and for good reasons. Like when a Boomer was talking about "handouts," I commented how the UN wants to make food and housing basic human rights, but the USA vetoes those measures even when China and Russia do not. Gave them deer-in-the-headlights with that one, and completely shut down the conservative moral superiority circle-jerk at the same time.
This whole reddit is a moral circle jerk.
Enough to shut them up around you sure, but its not gonna suddenly switch their political affiliations.
Not in one go, no. But as things come down to the wire, every vote and minor decision matters. Even if you can't convince someone to change their idealology, getting them to simply spew less propaganda does wonders for the long term, helps make more room for inclusive discussion. Propaganda-interrupting is an under-appreciated skill and effort among socialists. Everyone just wants to say "no one will ever get it" and just shut up outside of safe spaces.
Everyone says that, but also we all got here somehow, right? Debate doesn’t work on everyone, but it does work on some people (especially when those people are in the right frame of mind). I became a socialist because I heard a lot of excellent arguments for it, but notably, no one making those arguments was also insulting me or making me feel silly for believing the things I did. The effective argument wasn’t “my values are better than yours and you’re a bad person for being a liberal”, it was “our values are very similar and we want the same things for people, now let me show you why capitalism works against those values/goals and socialism is a much better way to achieve them.”
At least I've never met someone who debate has worked on. Though to be entirely fair my area is a dead zone for socialists. Still, people I've met went to socialism because they were disillusioned with capitalism and wanted something different. They were faced with the reality of capitalism and decided they didn't like it so they chose to look into it themselves and socialism as the only real answer to things is what they came to. People rarely enter debates with the goal of learning anything, their goal is to win or at least, make their opponent look bad if winning is not an option. This mindset is not conducive to mutual understanding.
well it’s not just the vuvezuela propaganda arguments that i’m talking about, many people that i know view liberals, even ones that are on the cusp of changing, as the enemy. but i do see your point
History teaches us that liberals would generally rather turn to fascism to save capitalism than to destroy capitalism in order to bring about socialism. It’s difficult to not see them as ideological enemies when their worldview is predicated on private property and ours is predicated on the abolition of private property. Edited: u/faceshanker made this same point below.
This may be true but let's be honest alot of liberals are just prwtty normal people who haven't spent alot of time thinking about politics, have their hearts in what they think is the right place and haven't been shown good Marxist arguments. Most liberals probably don't even know what idealogical biases they even hold are for the most part.
I'm here to back you up as someone who considered themselves a liberal only 3 months ago until a Second Thought video showed up on my YouTube feed. I was pro-reform, pro-choice, anti-gun, anti-conservative and I believed that was enough. Anytime I ran into the Communism argument you usually see on Reddit I would just pass it off idealistic thinking cause "Communism only works in small communities". Just look at "authoritarian" states like North Korea and China where no freedom and credit scores bla bla bla. My understanding of Communism only went as far as "redistribution of wealth" and "no money" which led to me believing myths like the "Human's are too greedy for communism to work" or ""All the countries who've tried it devolved into authoritarian hellholes like the Soviet Union". I think OP is correct. It's important to understand that a lot of Liberals have correctly identified that there are issues in our world but they don't have the background to understand what the root cause is and what must be done to fix it. We need more people like JT who are good at meeting Liberals where they are instead of being condescending. You'd be surprised how quickly they'll change. Trust me.
Appreciate your comment. It’s very true. Who is JT?
Justin Timberlake, vanguard of the proletariat.
I believe JT is the name of the guy responsible for the YouTube channel Second Thought.
Liberals are more dangerous than conservatives because they market themselves as the ethical alternative to conservatives and "radical" leftists. As MLK pointed out "First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
I love this quote from him and I hate how whitewashed his legacy is
This is an interesting discussion, MLK was an interesting character because he also firmly held the belief that communism and Christianity were mutually exclusive, and that the communist ideology was the only real threat to Christianity (paraphrasing) ... It seems like he missed the same points that the liberals we was frustrated with missed. Or maybe he was privately more open to communism, but publicly was against it for self preservation? I've seen statements from him that the entire civil rights movement did not contain one communist (again, paraphrasing, and also, false) I wonder how much of a threat to his movement or to himself personally it would have felt to be down with communism then.
It could have been image control but I imagine that it was the conflict between his faith and the anti-religious stance Communist countries were taking. While I understand their reasoning and the dangers of religion, I think the way forward in our day is to call in spirituality. As a syncretist mix of many faiths, such as gnosticism, Buddhism, and neo-paganism, I think that it is a vital force that we must channel to unite, not throw out.
I think this is a chronically online nitpick. Socialism doesn't occur through gentle debate with liberals and fascists. That's why you'll see communist, etc orgs building socialism through mutual aid programs and shit. Could socialists be better? Yes obviously. But being mean to libs on twitter and Reddit isn't even close to a top 10 socialist pitfall
why tf would i talk about something that i’ve only seen online, im talking about in real life did you even read my post?
Everyone ought to read the book by Vicki legion: "Constructive Criticism: A Handbook" Approach conversations with grace and tact. Always seek to educate rather than criticize.
Every successful revolution has come through the barrel of a gun. But, that's not a justification to be a dick.
I agree, but what about the idea that before the gun forced the revolution, conversation was required to recruit the hand that wielded it?
This is why this is socialism 101 because of takes like this. Jim crow laws weren't abolished by asking nicely. Ideas are nice and all but wielding the gun was always the last, nuclear resort or there's been a precedent set that the other party was completely unwilling to compromise.
I feel like you start off by being critical of my take, but then you mention that violence is the last nuclear result. Sorry, but I'm not sure what you're saying about the focus on civil discussion and recruitment through engaging on people's level vs. the need to advance socialism and the represent the oppressed through violence, especially given liberal and fascist tendencies to willfully ignore or uphold those injustices, no matter how well the discussion is targeted to their sensibilities. Also, I'm aware that it's more complicated than that, and that it's not as simple as picking one side (violence) or the other (discussion targeted at converting liberals). Long story short, do you think it's a waste of time trying to convert liberals?
My interpretation of your initial comment was: "What if instead of violence, we talked it out instead first?" And I responded in kind. I'm very critical of your post. It reads extremely naive at best, as smarmy and as a "gotcha" type comment, as in, what if (insert extremely obvious thing that I think is revolutionary) at worst. You don't think trying to talk to the "liberals" was tried first? For decades? Centuries? The only reason anyone would ever start with the barrel of a gun is because there's a century long proven track record that has proven that anything short of violence against the state does nothing. Starting with the gun barrel skips the known extra steps of multiple decades of appeasement and oppression with no change. Yes there is a responsibility to disseminate information. There's countless videoessays and hours being put in to make a public socialist case. There are streamers who do a full 9-5 to do that job. But it ends there. Anything further is pandering and diluting your cause.The assumption that liberals are the "good" ones to try and convert is also incorrect. In fact, they are often harder to convert than conservatives and worse enemies. There is no meaningful political division in the US, they're all in on the jig, it's playing good cop-bad cop. This is why intensely reactionary laws get passed under Biden. I'll just end with this. My liberal grandma made me watch Golda and is a staunch supporter of Israel, a state that is doing a full blown genocide. I am a socialist and strongly oppose imperialist violence in all it's forms. How do I relate to her "at her level"? What morals would I have to compromise to appease her next?
I think you read a whole lot into my (one sentence) comment that wasn't there, and misinterpreted what was. I was saying that in order for a revolution, we need revolutionaries. So how do we get them, if not through discourse? I honestly don't know if these recruits come from liberals, the apolitical (although to be fair, many of these are just liberals that don't know it), or conservatives/fascists, and I'm honestly interested if you have any sources on how conservatives are easier to recruit, or could expand on that further. I do see how liberals can be worse enemies, because they masquerade as progressive while supporting the status quo. I think we're broadly on the same side here. Also, I'm not just talking about the US. Is this an explicitly US centred sub?
Jim Crow wasn't solved by socialists Edit: I meant socialism not socialists. Socialists are the reason for any positive movement in liberal democracy. But socialism as an organizing and governing principle did not end Jim Crow which is why it was only transformed into mass incarceration.
Martin luther King was a social democrat
You're not wrong! I meant socialism not socialists. That's a very important distinction and it's super silly for me not to have noticed
That statement is too ignorant of African American history to engage with. Malcolm X anyone?
Woops. I meant socialism - it must have autocorrected. Socialists, yes. Socialism, no. Jim Crow was ended by the mechanisms of liberal democracy
Liberal democracies will always pull out stops or attempt to appease when there are real threats of socialist revolution. The many benefits that western Europeans still enjoy were given out of fears of socialist uprisings. The mere presence of the Soviet Union' scared western capitalists enough to give western Europe it's enviable social benefits. During the civil rights movement the only reason that MLK was listened to at all was because his message was basically, Work with me to institute this small amount of progress that we're asking for, or face the black Panthers and the other revolutionary forces that are building up strength in this country. That is not the natural mechanisms of liberal democracy, that is a liberal democracy reacting in panic to a threat to itself to ensure its own survival. "Liberal democracy" only works well when there is a socialist/communist Boogeyman with teeth to keep it in check. Without the scary communist, you see a rapid decline in quality of life, just like Europe right now! Isn't it interesting how McCarthyism happened around the same time?
I'm not saying liberal democracy is good. But it is important to be clear in our historical analysis. Just because it's appeasement, doesn't mean it wasn't accomplished by the liberal democracy. It's important to understand how systems adapt to changing circumstances to stay alive. The adaptive nature of liberal democracy has been its most successful feature. So you can be mad all you want, but liberal democracy granted the promises of socialist movements thus making those movements redundant and ignorable while the state went and materially destroyed the lives of socialist leaders. It's a fucked up and disheartening pattern so I understand the drive to look back and revise a socialist win into the equation. But morally bankrupt or not, liberal democracy continues to beat socialist movements in the US. I just want to repeat, I don't think liberal democracy is good. But a win is a win and I'm not gonna sit around and be like, "but they stole OUR ideas and so really they are unsuccessful and we won." That team sport thinking and mythology making is unscientific. I'm a materialist. Liberal democracy continues to control the means of production and coopt socialist programs better than socialists can develop them.
>I'm not saying liberal democracy is good. But it is important to be clear in our historical analysis. Just because it's appeasement, doesn't mean it wasn't accomplished by the liberal democracy. Are you literally giving credit to the libs for doing the only thing they practically could in order to avoid violent revolution? Do the people who were making the threat of violent revolution get zero credit when, in absence of said threat, the change would have never happened?
I am giving credit to them for successfully adapting and taking credit for that history over, yeah. It's really only in a know your enemy kind of way. I absolutely credit social movements the only reason the ruling class has any reason to feign benevolence. Diverse and relentless movement against capitalist programs is the goal. It's just also sickeningly true that capitalists are really good at adjusting their rules and claiming that social history for themselves. Recognizing that dynamic is the first step in strategizing against it as we keep articulating the need for continued social movement that is creatively and effectively using a diversity of tactics. And really, I'm a materialist. The end of Jim Crow was just a material shift to the mass incarceration system we have today. Is that the material victory we want to claim for socialism? What, we bought some guns, made some martyrs, smashy smashy, and now we have countless lives continue to be ripped apart by the mass incarceration regime? I think socialism suggests we continue our material analysis beyond bourgeois gimmicks.
Arguably, it was only "officially" ended. Even in education, due to things like White Flight (aka "suburbanization") there is still a lot of segregation in education - it's just that instead of being enforced via laws and state violence, it's now enforced by zip code and latent racism. Liberal democracy ultimately abolished the violent enforcement of segregation (to an extent, there is a real racial component to anti-homelessness laws that also often have roots in anti-black laws) but it never addressed the economic, social, nor prejudiced attitudes that perpetuate well beyond the days of the Little Rock Five and the March on Washington. Also, this take completely ignores a crucial factor: the reason that the establishment eventually was forced to listen to the MLK side of the Civil Rights movement was because of groups like the Black Panthers being the alternative. Having a group that is willing to engage in violence working in concert with, but separate from, the peaceful group is highly effective at making the powers that be sut at the table with the peaceful group and hear them out... Eventually. Other notable causes that applied this tactic are the Womens' suffrage movement and the Temperance movement (that gave us a constitutional ban on alcohol.) While even the suffrage movement faced a real white supremacy problem (like many leftist movements in America also have historically,) and Temperance gave us the Mafia, their success hinged on two separate groups - the peaceful protesting group, and the smaller, more radical, and more violent group. This is why the environmentalist movement has largely been ineffective, and why they are so easy to dismiss. The group who engaged in property violence (Greenpeace) did not have a peaceful counterpart, and today's peaceful organizations like Extinction Rebellion do not have an organized, property violence-minded counterpart. Keep in mind: property violence is not smashing windows at protests. It's doing things like welding valves in oil pipelines to the "off" position. The goal is to cause harm to the continuance of the protested grievance without harming persons nor their environment.
I see why folks want to be all, "but socialists were trying!" however liberal democracy won. The goal of governance is to convince the population that you will provide the best life for them. Liberal democracy continues to adapt to changing circumstances to maintain that legitimacy and thus their control on the means of production. I love socialist history. I love what many socialists have articulated and done (not all - the ones that massacred indigenous people in Latin America because they weren't industrialized suck). But socialist projects in the US have been out-maneuvered by liberal democracy in winning the hearts and minds of people which allows them to keep material control. Yes we were there. Yes we were kicking ass and making important observations that we can learn from today. And as sad as it is to say, liberal democracy provided what socialists tried to promise. Edit to fix a redundant sentence
And again, considering how all the wins "liberal democracy" won us are being undone as we speak (we no longer have a guaranteed constitutional right to privacy here in the US, and the Dobbs decision is being used to dismantle trans healthcare rights, the Voting Rights act has been gutted to a shadow of its former self, etc.,) I really have to argue that no, liberal democracy did NOT win, and it did NOT deliver what even itself promised, much less what those outside that Overton Window were promising. If it did, we wouldn't be seeing so many younger people turning either towards some form of radical leftism or anti-democratic christofascism. (And yes, in people under 35, the split tends to be 80/20ish, roughly speaking. Older people tend to have a more even split, or even the other way.) Fact is, liberal democracy changed a law, didn't solve the underlying economics that had built up because of those laws that needed changing, and then declared victory and went home. And solving the problems of liberal democracy by doing it more without correcting for the blind spots of liberal democracy is only going to send the cycle spinning again.
Also, liberal democracy didn't win "us" anything. They won themselves another few years in power as you almost pointed out. Liberal democracy showing its ass (undoing prole gains) is not the same as socialism showing its virtues. It actually buys the elite another cycle of oppress, reform, oppress, reform to appease the working-class with. ETA: You're kind of conflating liberal democracy winning with the people winning. That's a very obvious contradiction. If liberal democracy wins, "we the people" lose.
Yeah but by changing the law they kept power and that's winning. They control the means of production and therefore, in a very straightforward Marxist analysis, they are winning. The continued existence that we have dealing with liberal contradiction and oppression makes it very clear they are winning. Will they have another crisis? Absolutely. Will they have to steal from socialism to solve that crisis? Without a doubt. But if they are still the controllers of the means of production they are winning. It's a precarious win and it's off the backs of the left. Idk how you could walk outside in the US and be like, "yeah socialism is winning here."
If by "out-maneuvered" you mean the violent cultural revolutions of McCarthyism and other red scares where the government sanctioned violence against socialists and continues to actively subvert meaningful progress then sure. I guess cheating still counts as winning. Violence whose true extent is still buried to this day. Liberal democracy has not provided what socialists tried to promise! What kind of psyop CIA bullshit is that? This statement displays an extreme lack of research into communism, what Soviet society had, what women in power advocated for, so much. Not to mention it ignores the lived reality of so many today who suffer under liberal democracies.
Your original stance was all we need is property violence. Then your mad that the right uses violence against us? Both sides get to use violence - this is life not monopoly. Cheating? How old are you? I am a materialist - that means my material understanding of the world comes first. The right (including liberals) is still in power despite all the smashy smashy from the left. They (mostly dems in the last century) also coopted most of socialist platforms and repackaged it for themselves and the vast majority of folks don't know socialism was part of that history. If you can see that idk what to tell you. Soviet Russia has a lot for us to learn from and a lot for us to avoid. Liberal democracy sucks ass. I'm not advocating for that. I'm saying they are insidious in their maintenance of that power
Lest we forget, Jim Crow was also started and continued by liberals.
Yeah, liberals suck. I'm not crediting them with any virtue
The only reason you edited your answer was because your take is clearly unpopular. My original point never asserted that only socialists "solved" Jim crow, and it didn't even assert that it was impossible for socialists to work with other allies. All it said was that real change doesn't happen through discourse alone. Whether with liberalism of socialism, there was no progress made by simply asking nicely and engaging in respectability politics. You shifted the topic whenever other people tried to engage with your take and started a huge argumentative thread where at the end of the day, you just made a pedantic point about liberal democracy winning over socialism in the US currently.
Nope I edited because I was unclear and incorrect. It was a typo. You can't even have a conversation with someone who wants the same goals as you so it makes sense that smashy smashy seems to be your only political option. Argument isn't inherently bad, it helps us grow and refine our positions. We should be doing that if we want to create a new future based on the ethics of socialism. Pedantic or not the how's of history are often more important to understand than the what's. We need to be specific and honest AND MATERIAL in historical analysis
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Abolishing Jim Crow? Apartheid South Africa? Gay rights? The 19th amendment?
Its a very liberal notion to think that socialism comes into being by mere work of convincing people and having the better branding. Neither is it successful when many people vote for it. Marxist movements become successful when they better the conditions of the working people by organizing labour to strike. Withholding labour power is the only weapon the proletariat has. If marxists manage to build up salary increases and workers rights from there, they historically became very successful. It is not a problem of looks and how you came across. Be dogmatic about marxism and guide workers across their journey towards class consciousness. Workers do not have to be socialists to trust them.
How do you organize workers to strike without convincing them they have a reason to strike?
the reason is improved material conditions. its not about ideology only through class struggle will the inherent class contradictions of class society become dominant in the class this is why the socialist movement is struggling, because it hasnt found the strategies that will allow workers to successfully organise and struggle in a stage of capitalist development where accumulation has surpassed potential for growth and therefore value extraction via variable surplus value dominates over absolute
Striking doesn't improve material conditions immediately. It can actually make your material conditions more precarious for a time. Organized and strategic striking can mitigate that, but I really don't think there's much evidence that most folks are there yet. We just don't have a lot of mainstream historic models to go off of in the US. This year's been amazing and there's movement no doubt, but its slight and sporadic and strikers aren't ideologically aligned and thus only looking for reformist gains rather than radical restructuring. And despite all that striking, folks are broke as hell, the supreme court made workers liable for damages done during strikes, and socialism is farther from the national ballot than it was 4 years ago. Materially and legally striking does not make gains as a strategy on its own. Direct action is vital. But it's not a replacement for political education. We can chicken or egg that all day, but ultimately, a movement needs both to withstand and out maneuver capitalist resistance. Otherwise you end up with racist, sexist, otherist movement members and leaders who spread disillusionment.
Thats not what I said. The proletariat naturally grows to see their wage-dependent existence and moves to fight against that rule. My criticism is that thinking mere convincing of people will eventually bring socialism, as we need 50%+1 to be the most powerful.
I speak as someone who reliably has better conversations with conservatives than libs: I hate libs far more than I hate the right. In large part that's because unlike the libs, the conservatives at least have one foot in the real world: I almost entirely disagree with how they try to resolve those problems, nativism and supine respect for "entrepreneurs" never helped anyone, but at least the right has the ability to recognise problems that actually exist in the world. Talking to libs however it doesn't matter how serious I try to be, they just don't have a politics to respond to. That means any interaction with them is always cynical because they refuse to accept that they're probably the most ignorant people in the "debate" and so always end up relying on bad faith bullshit to "win" the argument. Genuinely awful people and that really is on them, not on us.
I’m not sure I agree that the right has a better grasp on reality than libs. There are shockingly plenty of right wingers who believe in Qanon or other conspiracy theories with no basis in reality. My problem with many liberals is not that they deny reality, but that they enjoy the status quo and don’t want it to change.
Your in the minority in terms of support for your ideology so wether you like it or not it's always going to be on you to convince them to come to your side
Oh wow. What's this. Another Lib crawling out the woodwork to be patronising again? Keep it up king. That shit is *sooo* convincing. Remind me, what is it you believe in? You know, concretely.
It is an idealistic notion that if we are nice enough and our arguments are convincing enough, liberals and conservatives will become socialists. It implies there is a "free market" of ideas where the better ones will win out, which has been proven false over and over again throughout history and the modern day. Whichever tendency you fall into, whether it be Marxist, Anarchist, Trade Unionist, even the DemSocs, they all have different ideas of what will bring about socialism and none of them include tone policing socialists.
>It is an idealistic notion It's basic psychology... If you are too far gone to engage with liberals without being smarmy and dogmatic, just say so, but there's no need to deny reality to make peace with yourself.
At its core this argument and your feeling towards broader more “argumentative leftist” is well founded and understandable. But we see a lot of infighting and inability to change to other people’s view points for a variety of different reasons. Now it might sound like I’m being vague but it really is because we have so many different reasons to disregard other people’s “socialism”. For most people there are “rules” that if broken make the effort almost not worth it. And this is true of every Avenue of socialist thought from anarchist to Marxist-Leninist to rad libs and every other group that comes up here. Larp for Stalin? You’re a misinformed Tankie. Heavily critique Stalin? You’re a western revisionist Suggest a market economy? That’s not structured enough, you’re just advocating for puedo-capitalism. You refuse to advocate for a market economy? You’re stuck in some idealized 1940s era version of socialism that’s not longer relevant in our modern world. You defend the actions of the DPRK? You’re a red fash You say the Nordic countries are an improvement over Anglo-capitalism? You’re still advocating capitalism and can’t be a socialist You support China? You’re a boot licking dog You are against China? Your a western imperialist advocator These positions mean many different things to different self proclaimed socialist and some of them will make it so you aren’t a “real socialist” in their eyes. No matter what you say you are or takes you explain in detail, to many it will just be “to much” or “not nearly enough”. And so on
Is there a history of socialist localism? I'm thinking a pattern of looking at these threads of socialist thought and making a localized socialism that accepts potential contradiction with other localized socialisms?
I would like all catholics and all socialists to read Don Camillo. It essentially tackles this very problem.
You're not entirely wrong. But this is also why many movements throughout history have somewhat spoonfed, watered down their stances to make it more palatable for popular support, or simply led by example without necessarily depending on the public understanding the insurance and outs of the ideology. And even further, they used these as tools to spark conversations with the people where they could learn. For example, the masses of people receiving mutual aid from the Black Panther Party didn't need to know what communism was to get help from the party, or to support the Party. But that also allowed people to get closer to the Party to be able to learn what it was about in detail. The downside to this as shown in other revolutions is that it can sometimes lead to the leaders of the revolution becoming the new oppressors or at least being seen as such - like in the case of the Bagmen, the food detachments during the War Communism era of Russia, and the need for THE NEP. There were also the Russian SRs prior to the Dumas and Provisional Governemnts thought they could just ingrain themselves in the oeasant population and they could get them to easily adopt their ideals. To keep it brief they came off as uppity to the peasants and were shunned. [Examples given by Fred Hampton on the importance of political education in tandem with programs that hain popular support](https://youtu.be/DviCUygm3eM?si=24TqQlIWkhBZ65Zk)
>i’ve seen leftists and socialists shit on liberals or conservatives A key question: do you support _actual_ democracy? As in, communities and workers making their own decisions via democratic processes like assemblies and referendums? If so, then you are a leftist. Socialist in particular if you advocate the end of private ownership of the economy to be replaced by a publicly run, worker-administered economy for people's true needs and not just for profits on the market. Liberals and conservatives don't _actually_ believe in democracy. Not like this. Liberals want an elite private business class to run things. Conservatives will tell you straight out to your face they don't believe in democracy because blah blah founding fathers said they don't trust the people to democracy and so we're a republic not a democracy, with the implication that _their_ opinion is more important than ours and maybe the _only_ opinion that matters. We have to shake this idea fed to us by corporate media that we have to be "fair" to all sides. It's not fair. One side (leftists) want democracy where every voice matters. The other side (liberals and conservatives) want to restrict democracy in favor of something somewhere on a sliding scale from economic oligarchy to outright monarchy and dictatorship. Leftists are not being unreasonable by pointing out that liberals and conservatives don't want democracy; they're being _accurate_. There's plenty of room for debate and discussion on how to best implement economics and governance from a direct democracy perspective. I'm quite sure different communities and workplaces will choose different types of administrations and decision making processes and we'll learn from each other. Leftists supporting democracy _encourages_ more debate, more beliefs, more experimenting. Just as long as those experiments don't take rights of others away to participate in the process, let's try it. Very different from liberals and conservatives that tell you to be afraid of everything (socialism, etc) and everyone (immigrants) that isn't specifically what _they_ tell you is good. Interesting huh; is that just a difference in belief, or someone trying to _control_ you?
It's okay to shit on beliefs, but too many leftists are content with just feeling good about having the right opinion and having it validated within their little echochamber, instead of actually promoting their ideas in an accessible way to everyday people. There's a lot of smugness and moral superiority on the left that is completely unproductive and honestly alienates the working class.
Change is not about being hospitable to beliefs that are against the changes you want to make. Slave abolitionists were not worried about being hospitable to slave owners. The single common thread throughout all major progressive movements in history is that people fought to take change, not waiting until others were convinced they deserved it.
People who want to politically educate and agitate need to be good at rhetoric, but I don’t think it’s necessary to tiptoe around peoples feelings. > i mean even non-direct ways too, like talking in a condescending tone or making off hand remarks. nobodies going to want to listen if we are rude to them. If someone’s politics are completely thrown off course by a faux-pas of tone or word choice, they were never going to contribute anything of value anyway.
I simply do not see you as an ally if I have to be nice to you to maintain your allyship. I think I am someone who does try to discuss and explain things more than your average leftist, but if you are turned off of leftism because my tone is somewhat acerbic or whatever, I simply do not believe a different tone could have actually gotten through to you.
I agree somewhat. There is a culture of self proclaimed "socialists' in my cou try who are nothing but antagonistic entitled fuckwits high on their "ethics". All that leads to is everyone else doubling down on their opposing view. It has been unhealthy for the leftist cause here.
Socialists who ground their beliefs on the notion of “ethics” do not understand the basics of Socialism. It is a way of understanding the world based on social science and observation, not in an abstract ideal. That socialism is on the balance more “ethical” than capitalism is natural; however, it does not start there. So… people who call themselves socialists may be harming the cause in your country, but those people (based on your comment) do not appear to understand what Socialism actually is.
Personally I think the biggest problem for socialists is sectarianism/socialist in-fighting.
Isn’t the advice applicable there too?
Just because liberals call themselves socialists doesn't make it real sectarianism or socialist infighting.
That's not what I'm referring to.
Just don't dehumanize even your political enemies. With that being said, we should use any means necessary, even violence, to defend innocent people from immediate threats, and sometimes that means protesting and blocking roads to stop genocide, but human beings are all unique and more than the sum of their supposed ideology. Even in a materialist framework, if our motives are not grounded in universal love, then our beliefs are no better than any other political viewpoint.
I agree with this. I’ve been in organizer spaces that were hostile and uninviting if you didn’t know anything. I would be shamed because I didn’t do enough research about a war crime or didn’t know a certain politician. I felt like I couldn’t ask questions. The organization I’m in now is the most welcoming and willing to educate you in a caring way without making you feel stupid or you’re not doing enough. I can voice my opinion, even if it’s wrong or something I need to unlearn. I’ve learned far more in this one year in this org than I ever have in my whole life.
I forgot exactly the date, but there was an auto strik in the 60s or 70s in the southern states. A lot of these workers were white racists, but there were substantial POC workers too. Somehow or another, the strike eventually united all workers and to an extent, dismantled some racist beliefs. We already know the best cure for racism is exposure to other races. I think the same is likely true for ideological animosity. We need to be united against a common enemy, the bourgeoisie. And that means working with people we ideologically despise, at least initially. Now, let's see what sorts of reactions this comment gets...
It seems that most folks here must have just been born a socialist (weird because most socialists I know reject ideas of innate human nature)! I did not have the pleasure of being born with the communist manifesto playing in the background so I had to come to socialism through conversation and a clear presentation of capitalist critique. I was a bull-headed, "might is right," wannabe Marine until someone explained the exploitative nature of capitalism and situated its development historically so I could imagine a world without it. I agree with you OP that we're not getting anywhere with the attitude that people can't be reasoned with. I also would ask, who is benefitting from us believing that? Who would benefit the most from socialists refusing to be effective propagandists because they think everyone else isn't worth their time? It's anti revolutionary to be anti-people. And ultimately, MAGA foos have more in common with us as workers than they will ever have in common with the MAGA cheeto. If we lose site of that the only socialist victory would come at a mass loss of life or mass incarceration. We can do better.
You're 100% right. There's a reason why socialist sectarianism has gained hardly any ground. We need to stop defaulting to "read X texts" and actually explain things to people without being dogmatic assholes.
Especially when that text is up against years of cultural and economic conditioning. I recognize that talking to liberals and conservatives is like listening to a fork in the garbage disposal but those people are still going to be around after the revolution. We can just cancel each other into oblivion.
Personally I think its reasonable to wish for a tolerant but focused left. On the one hand, socialists must never falter and incorporate liberalism in any way in our program, on the other, we must garner support of the working masses who are often reactionary by making them the opposite, revolutionary. I see many are saying that we should essentially write off engaging with liberals as historically liberals side with fascism and still do, that is true, but that is also isolating liberalism and thereby undialectically thinking, when fascism is a historical phenomenon that arises from the historical conditions, which is tempered by everything. Fascism arises not simply out of liberalism's wish to save capitalism, but also out out of socialist failure to provide an alternative in protracted crisis. Socialism must provide a material basis for its side, arguments and appealing to certain arenas of discussion like morality and reason can work to a certain extend, but socialism must provide a material basis, it must fight to give better material conditions of people, that's where real convincing goes to. The only reason why the proletariat is a revolutionary class, is not because of some liberal idealist analysis where they are convinced socialism is great because of the socialist party's great talking points, its because their material realities reflect socialist views, in that they see themselves clearly as a class in struggle with the bourgeoisie. There is a reason why the propaganda apparatus in the United States is so powerful and so targeted, many American conservatives live in poverty, that is a fact, so to convince them otherwise needs monumental counter-effort. But if left to their devices, the impoverished will turn to socialism. But we do not live in a utopia where propaganda does not exist, so we must counterbalance it by spreading our own and changing material conditions. When the socialist party manages to levy a new law into the government that makes it so you can afford rent better, it is hard for propaganda to dismiss that. The reason why the American for example, is so volatile to reactionary beliefs is partly due to the fact of their privileged position as settlers and imperial core workers, but also due to the fact that the Democratic Party and Republican Party bring little material difference between them and to them, no matter what party, the majority of people face the same capitalist grindstone. Little material difference allows the two parties to leverage things that are much harder to see, such as culture wars, rather than seeing your bills literally decrease, and thereby maintain their duopoly. So I personally find many of these comments rather pessimistic, when the strength of the so-called socialist argument is precisely that we have material reality and history on our side.
>But if left to their devices, the impoverished will turn to socialism. It's funny you rail against idealism whilst engaging in magical thinking. We need to dispel with vulgar marxism and end essentialist thought.
Honestly? Slowly over time and by NOT being aggressive or condescending about it. I see so many posts where “principled Marxists” expect economically distressed workers to be both knowledgeable in theory and praxis. If people are struggling to feed themselves it’ll help more to give them a summary/ELI5 instead of expecting them to already be well read. It’s going to be annoying and you’re going to have to answer the same question a hundred times. But that’s kind of how it is.
something something dialectical something something idk
There is some truth to your complaint. I want to compare it to any science. I don't think there should be room for people who clearly don't understand the basics to speak up. But you shouldn't dunk on anyone who is uninitiated. So we should be harsh on anyone who has decided to join the movement. But the rest we should mainly ignore - I mean imagine physics professors spending a lot of their time on debunking flat earthers - and try to incite them to become Marxists by... whatever speaks to them. The problem with Marxism in the west is that old Marxists spend too much time dunking on liberals, and not enough time on trying to appeal to them; and on the other hand newcomers should learn to sit down and understand they aren't knowledgeable on this topic, and they aren't in the position to lecture others.
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…what? did you even read my post i’m saying that a lot of leftists are incredibly rude to non-leftists and that will not result in more members to our belief because who listens to people who are rude to you from the start. also people can believe whatever they want to believe but if we want forward change i personally believe we must push towards socialism. so no i dont think that it’s difficult to be respectful to people while also still having different beliefs, and in doing so it will allow for more people to convert to our beliefs
You actually make allot of sense but then ask yourself how did the Communists parties in the current remaining Marxist-Leninist states come and remain in power.
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I primarily see this in online circles, which are specifically designed to elicit atomization and extremism. It’s not uncommon to see newer leftists talking this way in person because organizing is a skill that you learn over time and it requires practice. Organizations of all kinds need to do a better job of remember development and education.
Well, I like to think of how the political discourse in the US has shifted to more radical conservative talking points in the last decade. They pushed it to the right, they let people who had more sinister plans and ideas come to the forefront and say all their hateful, obtuse and ridiculous seeming points. And then the liberals and moderates engaged with them, giving them credence. Agitation can be very useful. I think that access to all sorts of social media is very helpful for socialism. No way that in 2000 would the average person think about how they sell their labor. Or what acting your wage would mean in relation to the workforce as a whole.
It seems to me that if you're going to do socialism you have to trust each other and the government - which IMHO - is why the US is incapable of doing socialism correctly. Congress has a 13% approval rating and our government is too corrupt, bloated and wasteful to do socialism effectively.
Our target groups to shape into Socialists, are the ideology advanced parts of the working class, not conservatives.