Historically, this just doesn’t work, and it even risks supporting PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as “MAGA Communism.” Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics.
In the lead-up to the Russian Revolution, there was disagreement over the necessity of reading theory. The SRs thought it was unneccessary, and got in the way of unity. Lenin and the Bolsheviks disagreed, as theory informs correct practice. The SRs became a footnotez and the Bolsheviks succeeded in establishing the world’s first Socialist state. One of Lenin’s most fanous lines, from What is to be done? is “without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary practice.”
As studying theory is necessary, people will realize you’re repackaging Socialism. This will backfire, and people will realize they’ve been tricked. This will hurt the movement.
As for Dialectical Materialism, in a nutshell it’s the philosophical backbone of Marxism. It’s an analytical tool, focusing on studying material reality as it exists in context and in motion through time, as well as their contradictions. If you want an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list that will teach you the fundamentals, I have one here that I made.
Personally, I’ve strived to adhere to the Einstein quote:
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
This not only applies to theory but language in general. If you, an English speaker, wants to ally with someone who only speaks Mandarin, the two of you will need to figure out how to understand simple shared concepts first (“water”, “car”, “help”).
Theory is the same. I don’t think we should completely do away with the proper verbiage. But, I do think we need to figure out how to translate our message in more ways than just language— I’m talking cultural. Because, right now, there are a lot of working class Americans who have been convinced that capitalist exploitation is American culture.
Sure, I don’t see why these two concepts can’t be pushed together. Don’t hide your intentions or obscure them, but explain them clearly and directly, in an understandable manner.
You saw the Simpson meme above right? That’s not entirely an exaggeration. The “S” word is legitimately terrifying to both American conservatives and immigrants who fled dictatorships.
It’s “explaining clearly and directly” that has been met with great resistance, actually. You forget we now live in a post-truth society.
I think you’d benefit greatly from reading “Brainwashing” followed by Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.” My strategy entirely changed after reading these, people will not side with you truly if they already license themselves to believe something else. This coincides with the real experience of Communists and other Leftists historically, Liu Shaoqi’s How to be a Good Communist talks about maintaining this honesty in dealing with the rest of the Working Class who may not be radicalized yet. This keeps us in touch with their needs and desires, preventing commandism or tailism.
American conservatives are not going to align with any kind of Socialism except for PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as “MAGA Communism.” Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics. This needs to be combatted direclty. Cubans leaving Socialism because their slaves were taken away by Castro are not going to have the same class characteristics, same with small business owners in the US.
Over time, as the conditions in the US Empire decay, more conservatives will be proletarianized and open to Communism and Socialism. It is a danger to let these narratives be driven by Nationalists in the Imperial Core.
Thanks for the literature but I know how to speak and relate to my neighbor. Many grassroots leftist organizations already implement what you’re talking about via mutual aid efforts and building community trust.
There is a strong individualist and isolationist mindset among the average American conservative. What I’ve come to learn is that being direct and honest about what Socialism is does not help because they’ve already formed a concrete belief about the buzz word. So, when I’m speaking to a suspected right-wing working class person, I do not use the buzz words while still conveying the meaning using words they commonly use themselves— hence what I said about translating our message in more ways than just language but also culture.
“Cubans leaving Socialism because their slaves were taken away by Castro are not going to have the same class characteristics”
Incorrect. There are many poor, working class Cubans (white, brown, and black) who vote conservative. You don’t have to be one of the elite to support their politics.
I don’t know what you mean by saying Mutual Aid networks “already implement what I’m talking about.” Are you saying Mutual Aid networks are spreading theory? Just want clarification here, charity is a good thing but that’s not what we were discussing to my knowledge.
As for the individualism and isolationism, that’s due to the class characteristics of the US Empire. As it depends on Imperialism, and has a large population of petite bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy, it is much harder to get genuinely leftist ideas to penetrate. The solution, however, isn’t to contribute to that by obscuring your intentions. A right winger suddenly thinking universal healthcare is a good idea won’t change the fundamental systems at play.
As for Cuban immigrants, it has been a long time since it became Socialist, and the Land Reform Act enacted. The descendents of these Cuban Exiles largely side with their parents, who tended to be against the Socialist revolution, as they were among the ones who lost out. Other exiles leaving due to the conditions imposed on Cuba by the US Empire’s brutal trade embargo aren’t likely to be convinced either.
You have to meet people where they are at without obscuring, otherwise you allow them to control the narrative.
Mutual aid is NOT charity, and this is a fundamental difference. In fact, mutual aid is a fundamental component of grassroots organization and I’m shocked you are unfamiliar with the term with how much leftist literature you are sending me.
You seem to believe that theory is necessary to achieving class consciousness and I disagree. You sent me several links to books intended for already self-identified leftists to read. Me reading more books isn’t going to radicalize right-wingers, right?
You are right about “meeting people where they are”. But, we need to synthesize the information and translate it according to the individual we are speaking to. This isn’t “hiding” or “obscuring” anything. It’s relating to the person directly instead of hiding behind complex economic theory and terminology that may go over their heads.
I think we should absolutely be learning from Lenin and the USSR. I don’t see what is “backfiring,” if you could elaborate on that I’d appreciate it. The thing is, the USSR broadly got many things unquestionably correct. They also had missteps, and we can learn from those just as much as we can from their achievements. The PRC learned from what succeeded and what failed in the Soviet Union, and is currently overtaking everyone else.
As for reading theory and “dogmatism,” this is indeed a problem, but not as big a problem as avoiding theory. You might find it fitting to start with Oppose Book Worship, which deals with just the problem of overly-dogmatic comrades that only ever read theory. You must read theory and test it via practice, each informs the other.
As for new theory, there is new analysis all the time! Much of older theory absolutely holds up, especially Marx and Lenin, but new theory exists too. I am currently reading Michael Hudson’s Super-Imperialism, which analyzes the modern form of the US Empire and how it extracts wealth as a debtor country. The reading list I made has older theory I consider essential, as well as newer works.
One might say that Marx is like Newton, describing/discovering many things and setting a foundation for their field. Saying “we shouldn’t read Newton because his stuff is old” or that his ideas are wrong simply because they are old is ludicrous. Both of them probably had things they got wrong, sure, and newer theory corrects this, but they still set the foundations.
While one might not read Newton directly in school, so for some Marxist theory it is too (see Elementary Principles of Philosophy teaching DiaMat), but Marxs books that haven’t been superseded in this way should still be read.
Fantastic way of putting it! People have iterated on Marx and Lenin, but the basic building blocks were first set by Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc, and as a consequence modern theorists use those tools in new conditions. You must still engage with these tools to have a better idea of how they apply to modern contexts.
Similarly: Saying we shouldn’t read theory, is akin to saying we shouldn’t learn science. You are going to have a very difficult time doing particle physics if you have no understanding of the world. Exactly as we say that without theory you are just going to be redoing the same stuff, so would every scientist have to rediscover the basics.
100%, excellent point comrade. For any onlookers, the concept she is describing here is the foundation of Marx’s notion of Scientific Socialism, analyzing human development as a science like any other in order to master its trajectories. Just like fire was once dangerous and sporadic for cavemen, the advancements in understanding how to start and control fire leaped development forward. So too can mastering the laws of human societal progression and organization.
I think we should absolutely be learning from Lenin and the USSR.
Learning from their mistakes. Not emulating a failed brutal authoritarian dictatorship.
I don’t see what is “backfiring,”
Americans fear the word “socialism” because they associate it with brutal authoritarian dictatorships. Your love of Lenin and the USSR isn’t helping with that.
The PRC learned from what succeeded and what failed in the Soviet Union, and is currently overtaking everyone else.
The only thing the PRC learned was to abandon socialism. Canada is more socialist than the PRC.
You keep linking books to read. I think we’ve read enough. It’s time to start writing.
The USSR wasn’t a “failed brutal authoritarian dictatorship,” though. They democratized the economy, ended famine in a country where that was regular, over tripled literacy rates from the low 30s to 99.9%, dramatically lowered wealth inequality while maintaining high economic growth, defeated the Nazis, proved that a publicly driven and planned economy works well, provided free and high quality healthcare and education, and more.
The USian fear of countries that went against the US Empire’s dominance and provided an alternative to it based in Red Scare propaganda is a problem that must be confronted, not thrown under the bed and avoided. If we are to establish Socialism, we must be honest about it.
As for the PRC and Canada, this is much the opposite. The PRC has a Socialist Market Economy driven by Marxist economics. Large firms and key industries like banking and steel are overwhelmingly in public ownership and control, while the private sector is overwhelmingly populated by self-employed people, cooperatives, and small businesses. Canada, on the other hand, is driven by private property and Imperialism.
If you write without reading and learning from your predecessors, you’ll repeat their mistakes and fail to replicate their successes. This is throwing away perfectly good tools, and is what doomed the SRs in Russia and why the Bolsheviks succeeded.
dramatically lowered wealth inequality while maintaining high economic growth
They were ended by the very corruption and wealth inequality you claim they lowered.
defeated the Nazis,
With the help of capitalist empires.
proved that a publicly driven and planned economy works well
It did not work well.
provided free and high quality healthcare and education
We do that in Canada, too.
The USian fear of countries that went against the US Empire’s dominance and provided an alternative to it based in Red Scare propaganda is a problem that must be confronted, not thrown under the bed and avoided.
Yet you dismiss everything bad ever said about the USSR as “Red Scare propaganda” to conveniently throw it under the bed and avoid it.
As for the PRC and Canada, this is much the opposite. The PRC has a Socialist Market Economy driven by Marxist economics.
China has banks. Stock markets. Billionaires. Absolutely nothing about their economy is socialist or is driven by marxism.
You can’t back these statements up with any evidence. You just make bold proclamations and assert them as true because you said they were, and if anyone doubts you they just have to “read theory”.
Large firms and key industries like banking and steel are overwhelmingly in public ownership and control, while the private sector is overwhelmingly populated by self-employed people, cooperatives, and small businesses.
None of what you just said here is true.
If you write without reading and learning from your predecessors, you’ll repeat their mistakes and fail to replicate their successes.
Yes, but unfortunately you have dismissed everything you have read as “Red Scare propaganda”, or likely “Yellow fever propaganda”.
They had democracy. Read Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan, or read this infographic:
They did not deliberately cause famine. There is no reason for this in the first place, as that weakened their economy and starved millions.
The Soviet Union was not ended because it lowered wealth inequality. Wealth inequality was lowered until after the Socialist system dissolved. What caused the dissolution of the USSR was a combination of various factors such as Gorbachev’s liberal reforms ceding power over large firms to Capitalists, a huge amount of GDP spent on the millitary to protect against the US, and the continuing to plan by hand rather than use computers at scale later on as production complicated.
As for defeating the Nazis, there was some degree of assistance from the Allies, but 80% of the combat against the Nazis was done by the Soviets. They outweighed the contributions of every other allied power combined, by several times.
As for the economy, it worked very well, actually, until later on in its life. I recommend reading Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? and looking at the following data on GDP growth:
Canada has some safety nets, sure. I never said you cannot have safety nets without Socialism, we were talking about the effectiveness of the Soviet Union, which had those safety nets before Canada despite being lower in development levels than Canada.
I don’t actually dismiss everything bad about the Soviet Union as propaganda, only propaganda. I have quite a few critiques of the USSR in this comment alone, however it’s hard to discuss the genuine faults when your view of the USSR is based in fiction.
China indeed has private property and banks, even billionaires, however the economy is driven by Public Ownership. Marx spoke about how the large firms were to be nationalized, and that small firms would be nationalized as they developed, gradually. This is because of Marx’s concept of Historical Materialism and Socialism as an economic inevitability as time progresses. You yourself have been railing against theory, why should anyone trust your opinion on Marxism?
Everything I said about the PRC is true, though.
I never needlessly or dogmatically dismissed anything, and unlike you I brought reciepts. The important issue here is your repeated unwillingness to look at facts, simply denying them without offering anything to support your claims or debunk mine. There’s nothing to work off of that way.
You people have good luck with this? I haven’t. I don’t find that you can just “trick” people into believing in socialism by changing the words. The moment if becomes obvious you’re criticizing free markets and the rich and advocating public ownership they will catch on.
Correct, and it even risks supporting PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as “MAGA Communism.” Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics.
Being honest with what you want and why has a far better track record, we see this in Socialist revolutions and in mg own personal experience with outreach.
I have the rather controversial opinion that the failure of communist parties doesn’t come down the the failure of crafting the perfect rhetoric or argument in the free marketplace of ideas.
Ultimately facts don’t matter because if a person is raised around thousands of people constantly telling them a lie and one person telling them the truth, they will believe the lie nearly every time. What matters really is how much you can propagate an idea rather than how well crafted that idea is.
How much you can propagate an idea depends upon how much wealth you have to buy and control media institutions, and how much wealth you control depends upon your relations to production. I.e. in capitalist societies capitalists control all wealth and thus control the propagation of ideas, so arguing against them in the “free marketplace of ideas” is ultimately always a losing battle. It is thus pointless to even worry too much about crafting the perfect and most convincing rhetoric.
Control over the means of production translates directly to political influence and power, yet communist parties not in power don’t control any, and thus have no power. Many communist parties just hope one day to get super lucky to take advantage of a crisis and seize power in a single stroke, and when that luck never comes they end up going nowhere.
Here is where my controversial take comes in. If we want a strategy that is more consistently successful it has to rely less on luck meaning there needs to be some sort of way to gradually increase the party’s power consistently without relying on some sort of big jump in power during a crisis. Even if there is a crisis, the party will be more positioned to take advantage of it if it has already gradually built up a base of power.
Yet, if power comes from control over the means of production, this necessarily means the party must make strides to acquire means of production in the interim period before revolution. This leaves us with the inevitable conclusion that communist parties must engage in economics even long prior to coming to power.
The issue however is that to engage in economics in a capitalist society is to participate in it, and most communists at least here in the west see participation as equivalent to an endorsement and thus a betrayal of “communist principles.”
The result of this mentality is that communist parties simply are incapable of gradually increasing their base of power and their only hope is to wait for a crisis for sudden gains, yet even during crises their limited power often makes it difficult to take advantage of the crisis anyways so they rarely gain much of anything and are always stuck in a perpetual cycle of being eternal losers.
Most communist parties just want to go from zero to one-hundred in a single stroke which isn’t impossible but it would require very prestine conditions and all the right social elements to align perfectly. If you want a more consistent strategy of getting communist parties into power you need something that doesn’t rely on such a stroke of luck, any sort of sudden leap in the political power of the party, but is capable of growing it gradually over time. This requires the party to engage in economics and there is simply no way around this conclusion.
How about “a tug-of-war between owners and workers for jobs, resources, and technology”
Three examples:
Factory Work and Labour Unions
Early 20th-century factory jobs involved long hours, low pay, and unsafe working conditions. When workers tried to unionize, factory owners often resisted, viewing unionized labour as a threat to profits. This created a direct conflict: owners wanting to keep costs low vs. workers demanding better wages and safer workplaces.
Automation in Warehouses
Warehouses (e.g., Amazon fulfilment centres) are increasingly adopting robotic systems to speed up sorting and packing. Employees might feel pressure to meet higher performance metrics set by a partly automated workflow, while also fearing that further automation will reduce human jobs. Here, the “tug-of-war” is between technological efficiency (and profit) vs. workers’ job security and well-being.
Tech Industry Outsourcing
Companies sometimes outsource tech-related jobs to countries with cheaper labour costs. This lowers expenses for the company but can lead to local layoffs and economic hardship for employees in higher-wage regions. The conflict revolves around the benefit of increased profit margins for the company vs. the material needs of domestic workers who lose their livelihoods.
Dialectical Materialism - Idk I’m still trying to figure out wtf that one means.
Practical historical development?
Definition: Practical historical development looks at how money, jobs, and resources shape how societies change over time. It shows that the ways people make things, the tools they use, and how resources are distributed build the base for how societies work. Instead of thinking that big ideas or beliefs drive history, this view shows that real-world conditions—like who has what resources and how work gets done—create the path for changes in society and politics.
The problem with many conservatives and regressives is that the only change to the status quo they seem content with are based on bigotry rather than economics.
No, Dialectical Materialism asserts that material reality drives the progression of history, and is the primary determiner of ideas, but that these ideas of humans influence them to reshape reality. This process works in endless spirals. Here’s a handy diagram:
Dialectical Materialism asserts that material reality drives the progression of history, and is the primary determiner of ideas, but that these ideas of humans influence them to reshape reality. This process works in endless spirals.
This reads like the word salad Jordan Peterson spews. It’s vague and doesn’t make any sense. Here’s a better image.
Jumping to insults, rather than asking for clarification on aspects that you are unsure of, doesn’t accomplish anything.
Regardless, in another phrasing, people’s ideas are shaped by their environment and current set of knowledge. When people act on their environment, their environment changes, informing them of new things and ideas, which in turn influences how they choose to act. This is repeated over and over, when people put their ideas to the test, parts of their ideas are confirmed, and others are rejected, allowing new hypothesis to be tested and confirmed or denied.
This is all obvious, of course, but Dialectical Materialism asserts that the primary driver of this process, ie which comes first, is the environmental aspect. People exist in their environment first, and then form their ideas based on that.
Of course, Dialectical Materialism has much, much more to it than that, such as looking at material reality in the context of motion, ie the river you see today is different from what it was yesterday because sediment has been eroded.
I didn’t write any insults. I attacked your arguments. I said they were reminiscent of Jordan Peterson’s word salad. I’m saying you aren’t saying anything of substance. You’re stringing a bunch of lofty concepts together in an attempt to sound smart, but you aren’t saying anything at all.
I think that’s what Marx was doing at many times too, but unfortunately some people are incapable of questioning it and instead just repeat it verbatim.
You directly compared me to Jordan Peterson, and you know I’m a Marxist, surely you can connect the dots and see how that would be insulting. Own up to that.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by Marx trying to sound smarter, or just regurgitate word salad? Or how it is that I don’t question Marx? Agreeing with him generally doesn’t mean I do so thoughtlessly.
Lisa’s only mistake was saying yes.
Just do every single thing in socialism, but change every single word. Call it Americanism.
Proletariat? No, just “worker”.
Bourgeoisie? No, just “elites”.
Capital? “Stuff”. Like how in baseball they say a pitcher’s got good “stuff”. Use your human stuff.
Class Consciousness - “common sense”.
Dialectical Materialism - Idk I’m still trying to figure out wtf that one means.
Historically, this just doesn’t work, and it even risks supporting PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as “MAGA Communism.” Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics.
In the lead-up to the Russian Revolution, there was disagreement over the necessity of reading theory. The SRs thought it was unneccessary, and got in the way of unity. Lenin and the Bolsheviks disagreed, as theory informs correct practice. The SRs became a footnotez and the Bolsheviks succeeded in establishing the world’s first Socialist state. One of Lenin’s most fanous lines, from What is to be done? is “without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary practice.”
As studying theory is necessary, people will realize you’re repackaging Socialism. This will backfire, and people will realize they’ve been tricked. This will hurt the movement.
As for Dialectical Materialism, in a nutshell it’s the philosophical backbone of Marxism. It’s an analytical tool, focusing on studying material reality as it exists in context and in motion through time, as well as their contradictions. If you want an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list that will teach you the fundamentals, I have one here that I made.
Personally, I’ve strived to adhere to the Einstein quote:
This not only applies to theory but language in general. If you, an English speaker, wants to ally with someone who only speaks Mandarin, the two of you will need to figure out how to understand simple shared concepts first (“water”, “car”, “help”).
Theory is the same. I don’t think we should completely do away with the proper verbiage. But, I do think we need to figure out how to translate our message in more ways than just language— I’m talking cultural. Because, right now, there are a lot of working class Americans who have been convinced that capitalist exploitation is American culture.
Sure, I don’t see why these two concepts can’t be pushed together. Don’t hide your intentions or obscure them, but explain them clearly and directly, in an understandable manner.
You saw the Simpson meme above right? That’s not entirely an exaggeration. The “S” word is legitimately terrifying to both American conservatives and immigrants who fled dictatorships.
It’s “explaining clearly and directly” that has been met with great resistance, actually. You forget we now live in a post-truth society.
I think you’d benefit greatly from reading “Brainwashing” followed by Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.” My strategy entirely changed after reading these, people will not side with you truly if they already license themselves to believe something else. This coincides with the real experience of Communists and other Leftists historically, Liu Shaoqi’s How to be a Good Communist talks about maintaining this honesty in dealing with the rest of the Working Class who may not be radicalized yet. This keeps us in touch with their needs and desires, preventing commandism or tailism.
American conservatives are not going to align with any kind of Socialism except for PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as “MAGA Communism.” Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics. This needs to be combatted direclty. Cubans leaving Socialism because their slaves were taken away by Castro are not going to have the same class characteristics, same with small business owners in the US.
Over time, as the conditions in the US Empire decay, more conservatives will be proletarianized and open to Communism and Socialism. It is a danger to let these narratives be driven by Nationalists in the Imperial Core.
Thanks for the literature but I know how to speak and relate to my neighbor. Many grassroots leftist organizations already implement what you’re talking about via mutual aid efforts and building community trust.
There is a strong individualist and isolationist mindset among the average American conservative. What I’ve come to learn is that being direct and honest about what Socialism is does not help because they’ve already formed a concrete belief about the buzz word. So, when I’m speaking to a suspected right-wing working class person, I do not use the buzz words while still conveying the meaning using words they commonly use themselves— hence what I said about translating our message in more ways than just language but also culture.
Incorrect. There are many poor, working class Cubans (white, brown, and black) who vote conservative. You don’t have to be one of the elite to support their politics.
I don’t know what you mean by saying Mutual Aid networks “already implement what I’m talking about.” Are you saying Mutual Aid networks are spreading theory? Just want clarification here, charity is a good thing but that’s not what we were discussing to my knowledge.
As for the individualism and isolationism, that’s due to the class characteristics of the US Empire. As it depends on Imperialism, and has a large population of petite bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy, it is much harder to get genuinely leftist ideas to penetrate. The solution, however, isn’t to contribute to that by obscuring your intentions. A right winger suddenly thinking universal healthcare is a good idea won’t change the fundamental systems at play.
As for Cuban immigrants, it has been a long time since it became Socialist, and the Land Reform Act enacted. The descendents of these Cuban Exiles largely side with their parents, who tended to be against the Socialist revolution, as they were among the ones who lost out. Other exiles leaving due to the conditions imposed on Cuba by the US Empire’s brutal trade embargo aren’t likely to be convinced either.
You have to meet people where they are at without obscuring, otherwise you allow them to control the narrative.
Mutual aid is NOT charity, and this is a fundamental difference. In fact, mutual aid is a fundamental component of grassroots organization and I’m shocked you are unfamiliar with the term with how much leftist literature you are sending me.
You seem to believe that theory is necessary to achieving class consciousness and I disagree. You sent me several links to books intended for already self-identified leftists to read. Me reading more books isn’t going to radicalize right-wingers, right?
You are right about “meeting people where they are”. But, we need to synthesize the information and translate it according to the individual we are speaking to. This isn’t “hiding” or “obscuring” anything. It’s relating to the person directly instead of hiding behind complex economic theory and terminology that may go over their heads.
I don’t think we should be emulating Lenin or the USSR. I think that’s what is backfiring.
“Read theory” is how they trick us, forcing us into dogmatic religious-like application of historical texts.
Why don’t we write theory? Marx and Lenin weren’t gods. They got things wrong.
I think we should absolutely be learning from Lenin and the USSR. I don’t see what is “backfiring,” if you could elaborate on that I’d appreciate it. The thing is, the USSR broadly got many things unquestionably correct. They also had missteps, and we can learn from those just as much as we can from their achievements. The PRC learned from what succeeded and what failed in the Soviet Union, and is currently overtaking everyone else.
As for reading theory and “dogmatism,” this is indeed a problem, but not as big a problem as avoiding theory. You might find it fitting to start with Oppose Book Worship, which deals with just the problem of overly-dogmatic comrades that only ever read theory. You must read theory and test it via practice, each informs the other.
As for new theory, there is new analysis all the time! Much of older theory absolutely holds up, especially Marx and Lenin, but new theory exists too. I am currently reading Michael Hudson’s Super-Imperialism, which analyzes the modern form of the US Empire and how it extracts wealth as a debtor country. The reading list I made has older theory I consider essential, as well as newer works.
One might say that Marx is like Newton, describing/discovering many things and setting a foundation for their field. Saying “we shouldn’t read Newton because his stuff is old” or that his ideas are wrong simply because they are old is ludicrous. Both of them probably had things they got wrong, sure, and newer theory corrects this, but they still set the foundations.
While one might not read Newton directly in school, so for some Marxist theory it is too (see Elementary Principles of Philosophy teaching DiaMat), but Marxs books that haven’t been superseded in this way should still be read.
Fantastic way of putting it! People have iterated on Marx and Lenin, but the basic building blocks were first set by Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc, and as a consequence modern theorists use those tools in new conditions. You must still engage with these tools to have a better idea of how they apply to modern contexts.
Similarly: Saying we shouldn’t read theory, is akin to saying we shouldn’t learn science. You are going to have a very difficult time doing particle physics if you have no understanding of the world. Exactly as we say that without theory you are just going to be redoing the same stuff, so would every scientist have to rediscover the basics.
100%, excellent point comrade. For any onlookers, the concept she is describing here is the foundation of Marx’s notion of Scientific Socialism, analyzing human development as a science like any other in order to master its trajectories. Just like fire was once dangerous and sporadic for cavemen, the advancements in understanding how to start and control fire leaped development forward. So too can mastering the laws of human societal progression and organization.
Learning from their mistakes. Not emulating a failed brutal authoritarian dictatorship.
Americans fear the word “socialism” because they associate it with brutal authoritarian dictatorships. Your love of Lenin and the USSR isn’t helping with that.
The only thing the PRC learned was to abandon socialism. Canada is more socialist than the PRC.
You keep linking books to read. I think we’ve read enough. It’s time to start writing.
The USSR wasn’t a “failed brutal authoritarian dictatorship,” though. They democratized the economy, ended famine in a country where that was regular, over tripled literacy rates from the low 30s to 99.9%, dramatically lowered wealth inequality while maintaining high economic growth, defeated the Nazis, proved that a publicly driven and planned economy works well, provided free and high quality healthcare and education, and more.
The USian fear of countries that went against the US Empire’s dominance and provided an alternative to it based in Red Scare propaganda is a problem that must be confronted, not thrown under the bed and avoided. If we are to establish Socialism, we must be honest about it.
As for the PRC and Canada, this is much the opposite. The PRC has a Socialist Market Economy driven by Marxist economics. Large firms and key industries like banking and steel are overwhelmingly in public ownership and control, while the private sector is overwhelmingly populated by self-employed people, cooperatives, and small businesses. Canada, on the other hand, is driven by private property and Imperialism.
If you write without reading and learning from your predecessors, you’ll repeat their mistakes and fail to replicate their successes. This is throwing away perfectly good tools, and is what doomed the SRs in Russia and why the Bolsheviks succeeded.
They had absolutely no democracy.
They deliberately caused famine.
They were ended by the very corruption and wealth inequality you claim they lowered.
With the help of capitalist empires.
It did not work well.
We do that in Canada, too.
Yet you dismiss everything bad ever said about the USSR as “Red Scare propaganda” to conveniently throw it under the bed and avoid it.
China has banks. Stock markets. Billionaires. Absolutely nothing about their economy is socialist or is driven by marxism.
You can’t back these statements up with any evidence. You just make bold proclamations and assert them as true because you said they were, and if anyone doubts you they just have to “read theory”.
None of what you just said here is true.
Yes, but unfortunately you have dismissed everything you have read as “Red Scare propaganda”, or likely “Yellow fever propaganda”.
They had democracy. Read Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan, or read this infographic:
They did not deliberately cause famine. There is no reason for this in the first place, as that weakened their economy and starved millions.
The Soviet Union was not ended because it lowered wealth inequality. Wealth inequality was lowered until after the Socialist system dissolved. What caused the dissolution of the USSR was a combination of various factors such as Gorbachev’s liberal reforms ceding power over large firms to Capitalists, a huge amount of GDP spent on the millitary to protect against the US, and the continuing to plan by hand rather than use computers at scale later on as production complicated.
As for defeating the Nazis, there was some degree of assistance from the Allies, but 80% of the combat against the Nazis was done by the Soviets. They outweighed the contributions of every other allied power combined, by several times.
As for the economy, it worked very well, actually, until later on in its life. I recommend reading Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? and looking at the following data on GDP growth:
Canada has some safety nets, sure. I never said you cannot have safety nets without Socialism, we were talking about the effectiveness of the Soviet Union, which had those safety nets before Canada despite being lower in development levels than Canada.
I don’t actually dismiss everything bad about the Soviet Union as propaganda, only propaganda. I have quite a few critiques of the USSR in this comment alone, however it’s hard to discuss the genuine faults when your view of the USSR is based in fiction.
China indeed has private property and banks, even billionaires, however the economy is driven by Public Ownership. Marx spoke about how the large firms were to be nationalized, and that small firms would be nationalized as they developed, gradually. This is because of Marx’s concept of Historical Materialism and Socialism as an economic inevitability as time progresses. You yourself have been railing against theory, why should anyone trust your opinion on Marxism?
Everything I said about the PRC is true, though.
I never needlessly or dogmatically dismissed anything, and unlike you I brought reciepts. The important issue here is your repeated unwillingness to look at facts, simply denying them without offering anything to support your claims or debunk mine. There’s nothing to work off of that way.
Read Blackshirts and Reds.
Worth noting is that corporate America could have been an Axis power with the sheer amount of crap that it marketed to Europe’s Fascist empires. About $475 million worth of crap (without adjusting for inflation). Likewise, the British Empire was the chief source of many of the Third Reich’s imported raw materials back in the 1930s, during which a Canadian business supplied almost the entire nickel market for it, too.
Dialectical materialism -> Scientific materialism to distinguish it from the common usage of the world “materialism”
You people have good luck with this? I haven’t. I don’t find that you can just “trick” people into believing in socialism by changing the words. The moment if becomes obvious you’re criticizing free markets and the rich and advocating public ownership they will catch on.
Correct, and it even risks supporting PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as “MAGA Communism.” Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics.
Being honest with what you want and why has a far better track record, we see this in Socialist revolutions and in mg own personal experience with outreach.
I have the rather controversial opinion that the failure of communist parties doesn’t come down the the failure of crafting the perfect rhetoric or argument in the free marketplace of ideas.
Ultimately facts don’t matter because if a person is raised around thousands of people constantly telling them a lie and one person telling them the truth, they will believe the lie nearly every time. What matters really is how much you can propagate an idea rather than how well crafted that idea is.
How much you can propagate an idea depends upon how much wealth you have to buy and control media institutions, and how much wealth you control depends upon your relations to production. I.e. in capitalist societies capitalists control all wealth and thus control the propagation of ideas, so arguing against them in the “free marketplace of ideas” is ultimately always a losing battle. It is thus pointless to even worry too much about crafting the perfect and most convincing rhetoric.
Control over the means of production translates directly to political influence and power, yet communist parties not in power don’t control any, and thus have no power. Many communist parties just hope one day to get super lucky to take advantage of a crisis and seize power in a single stroke, and when that luck never comes they end up going nowhere.
Here is where my controversial take comes in. If we want a strategy that is more consistently successful it has to rely less on luck meaning there needs to be some sort of way to gradually increase the party’s power consistently without relying on some sort of big jump in power during a crisis. Even if there is a crisis, the party will be more positioned to take advantage of it if it has already gradually built up a base of power.
Yet, if power comes from control over the means of production, this necessarily means the party must make strides to acquire means of production in the interim period before revolution. This leaves us with the inevitable conclusion that communist parties must engage in economics even long prior to coming to power.
The issue however is that to engage in economics in a capitalist society is to participate in it, and most communists at least here in the west see participation as equivalent to an endorsement and thus a betrayal of “communist principles.”
The result of this mentality is that communist parties simply are incapable of gradually increasing their base of power and their only hope is to wait for a crisis for sudden gains, yet even during crises their limited power often makes it difficult to take advantage of the crisis anyways so they rarely gain much of anything and are always stuck in a perpetual cycle of being eternal losers.
Most communist parties just want to go from zero to one-hundred in a single stroke which isn’t impossible but it would require very prestine conditions and all the right social elements to align perfectly. If you want a more consistent strategy of getting communist parties into power you need something that doesn’t rely on such a stroke of luck, any sort of sudden leap in the political power of the party, but is capable of growing it gradually over time. This requires the party to engage in economics and there is simply no way around this conclusion.
How about “a tug-of-war between owners and workers for jobs, resources, and technology”
Three examples:
Factory Work and Labour Unions
Early 20th-century factory jobs involved long hours, low pay, and unsafe working conditions. When workers tried to unionize, factory owners often resisted, viewing unionized labour as a threat to profits. This created a direct conflict: owners wanting to keep costs low vs. workers demanding better wages and safer workplaces.
Automation in Warehouses
Warehouses (e.g., Amazon fulfilment centres) are increasingly adopting robotic systems to speed up sorting and packing. Employees might feel pressure to meet higher performance metrics set by a partly automated workflow, while also fearing that further automation will reduce human jobs. Here, the “tug-of-war” is between technological efficiency (and profit) vs. workers’ job security and well-being.
Tech Industry Outsourcing
Companies sometimes outsource tech-related jobs to countries with cheaper labour costs. This lowers expenses for the company but can lead to local layoffs and economic hardship for employees in higher-wage regions. The conflict revolves around the benefit of increased profit margins for the company vs. the material needs of domestic workers who lose their livelihoods.
Practical historical development?
Definition: Practical historical development looks at how money, jobs, and resources shape how societies change over time. It shows that the ways people make things, the tools they use, and how resources are distributed build the base for how societies work. Instead of thinking that big ideas or beliefs drive history, this view shows that real-world conditions—like who has what resources and how work gets done—create the path for changes in society and politics.
The problem with many conservatives and regressives is that the only change to the status quo they seem content with are based on bigotry rather than economics.
So dialectical materialism rejects the notion of ideologies like socialism?
No, Dialectical Materialism asserts that material reality drives the progression of history, and is the primary determiner of ideas, but that these ideas of humans influence them to reshape reality. This process works in endless spirals. Here’s a handy diagram:
This reads like the word salad Jordan Peterson spews. It’s vague and doesn’t make any sense. Here’s a better image.
Jumping to insults, rather than asking for clarification on aspects that you are unsure of, doesn’t accomplish anything.
Regardless, in another phrasing, people’s ideas are shaped by their environment and current set of knowledge. When people act on their environment, their environment changes, informing them of new things and ideas, which in turn influences how they choose to act. This is repeated over and over, when people put their ideas to the test, parts of their ideas are confirmed, and others are rejected, allowing new hypothesis to be tested and confirmed or denied.
This is all obvious, of course, but Dialectical Materialism asserts that the primary driver of this process, ie which comes first, is the environmental aspect. People exist in their environment first, and then form their ideas based on that.
Of course, Dialectical Materialism has much, much more to it than that, such as looking at material reality in the context of motion, ie the river you see today is different from what it was yesterday because sediment has been eroded.
I didn’t write any insults. I attacked your arguments. I said they were reminiscent of Jordan Peterson’s word salad. I’m saying you aren’t saying anything of substance. You’re stringing a bunch of lofty concepts together in an attempt to sound smart, but you aren’t saying anything at all.
I think that’s what Marx was doing at many times too, but unfortunately some people are incapable of questioning it and instead just repeat it verbatim.
“I’m not insulting you, I’m just saying you’re writing word salad devoid of substance like a notorious quack”
You directly compared me to Jordan Peterson, and you know I’m a Marxist, surely you can connect the dots and see how that would be insulting. Own up to that.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by Marx trying to sound smarter, or just regurgitate word salad? Or how it is that I don’t question Marx? Agreeing with him generally doesn’t mean I do so thoughtlessly.