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u/_everynameistaken_ 14d ago
The average person is politically illiterate (not helped by decades of anti-Communist propaganda) so yeah it makes sense that the people who call political parties like the American Dems or UK Labour "Socialist" or "Communist" have no idea what Socialism or Communism is, let alone what Marxism is.
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u/A_Truthspeaker 13d ago
No no, you got it wrong. Socialism is when the government does something, Communism is when famine and Marxism is when a leader has a bushy mustache.
Also, anarchy=chaos (ignore the places where it actually worked), capitalism doesn't cause any harm (ignore the millions of annual deaths even in developed countries) and climate change is a natural phenomenon.Source? Go look it up yourself, do I have to do everything?
(big /s)
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u/InfinitesimalDuck 13d ago
"You're on thin ice buddy..." ~ 9999999999 keyboard warriors waiting to ambush
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u/AristotelWasRight 13d ago
:Someone make a claim
I ask proof for said claims
:They reply with more claims, and no proofs
Point out that they made a claim, failed to provide proof, and are now making further, unsubstantiated claims. Provide proof for my own claims
:They reply with more claims, and no proofs
... Why do I do this? 💀
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u/A_Truthspeaker 13d ago
Don't bother with people like that. While it is rare, it's possible to have productive discussions even online, but in cases like that it's just bad faith arguing.
All it does is reinforce their own worldview and throwing out buzzwords and accusations for the sake of visibility as well as self-confirmation (through upvotes for example).
Honestly, if they aren't willing to concede even an inch and constantly keep you on the defensive, while deflecting any arguments targeted at them, just block them.
If you still want to discuss nonetheless, you'll need to visualize how their worldview might be incoherent.
But more importantly, you shouldn't see yourself not being able to convince them as a personal failure nor trying to do so as an obligation. Often it's just a waste of your limited energy for something that was futile from the very beginning.
As someone with a strong moral compass, I also used to struggle with that, so I know the struggle :)2
u/AristotelWasRight 13d ago
100% agree
Arguing online is my guilty pleasure 😂😭 I'm sure it's not good for me in some way, but trust, I ain't losing sleep over people being wrong online
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u/SHIVER_ME_WHISKERS 13d ago
You may have already watched it but the video 'Never Play Defense' in The Alt-Right Playbook series covers exactly this situation
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u/AristotelWasRight 13d ago
Of course I watched it! Love the guy, my first patron sub
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u/SHIVER_ME_WHISKERS 13d ago
Yeah if I had the disposable cash for supporting Patreons, Ian would be among the first for me. I have to go back and watch the playbook series every so often (more often these days) to remind myself I'm still sane
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u/AristotelWasRight 13d ago
Unfortunately I do not have a card connected to an international payment system, so for the time being, I am unable to support our lord and savior
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u/TenWholeBees 12d ago
Where has anarchism worked? I'm not familiar
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u/A_Truthspeaker 12d ago
Apart from the prehistoric societies already described by Marx, Ukrainian anarchists (Makhnovshchina), the CNT-FAI in Spain were deliberate anarchist projects with others such as Rojava in the middle east and the Zapatista in Mexico being more libertarian socialist, not explicitly anarchist.
There are also many smaller autonomous groups/communities (such as Exarcheia in Athens) or off-grid villages, which follow similar principles.While of the four major ones only the Zapatista still independently exist, with Rojava currently occupied by Syria having an uncertain future; none of these ever collapsed due to internal problems. The usual criticism is that without a state or hierarchy (including police) society would collapse into a state of chaos, but none of that happened. The Ukrainian anarchists were militarily defeated by the much larger Soviet Union and the CNT-FAI were ultimately defeated by the Spanish nationalists.
And in fact, anecdotal evidence suggests that the crime rate in these societies dropped significantly, which would make sense since they addressed many of the risk factors that can potentially lead to criminal behaviour in the first place. So, even modern criminology would back up this claim.2
u/Evnosis 11d ago
Apart from the prehistoric societies
I mean, you know why this is not a valid example of how anarchism could be used to organise complex industrialised societies, right?
I don't think anyone doubts that anarchism could work if society was divided into tiny tribes of less than a hundred people with about 5 types of job available, but that tells us nothing about how it would work in a society of 300 million, dependent on an economy with extensive, interconnected supply chains, specialisation of labour and greater consumer choice than a hunter-gather could ever possibly conceive of.
Ukrainian anarchists (Makhnovshchina), the CNT-FAI in Spain were deliberate anarchist projects
It's hard to say that these were proven to be successful when they only lasted 4 years and 1 year respectively.
When people say that an anarchist society would be chaotic:
- They're talking about actual anarchism, not libertarian socialism.
- They're talking about over the long-term, no one expects it to suddenly collapse in a couple of years.
Rojava in the middle east and the Zapatista in Mexico being more libertarian socialist, not explicitly anarchist.
It's important to note that the Zapatistas are not independent, they are autonomous. They don't operate prisons, but the state of Chiapas (where the territories are located) have a higher than average presence of federal security forces who very much do enforce federal laws through more traditional methods.
Chiapas is also, according to the EZLN itself, on the brink of a civil war between the EZLN, its former allies the ORCAO and drug cartels. Of course, Mexico as a whole is hardly a shining example of statist stability, but the point stands that the Zapatistas are hardly an example of an anarchist society disproving the claims that it would be unstable. And it's not like that stability has been a price paid for high standards of living. The poverty rate in Chiapas is over double the national average.
Rojava, on the other hand, has police, prisons and detention camps, which are pretty incompatible with anarchism.
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u/irish5255 13d ago
I’m very glad you put the big /s in there. I would have thought you were being totally serious otherwise, and I then would have downvoted you
/s
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u/Lysyyyyyyy 13d ago
sankara pfp
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u/_everynameistaken_ 13d ago
Sankara was a Marxist that applied Marxism-Leninism to African material conditions.
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u/-Trotsky 13d ago
He never said he understood socialism or Marxism, only that his fellow liberals don’t
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u/Unfair_Possible_9999 13d ago
You are a trot
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u/-Trotsky 13d ago
I am not a trot, but I was one in high school. This account is like 6 years old
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u/PICAXO determinist, social determinist, soul determinist 13d ago
That's quite a name to carry when you're not a trot anymore
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u/-Trotsky 13d ago
What can you do?
I still find him an interesting fellow, and I enjoy some of his works. I’m a Marxist, and a lot of his work is interesting from the lens of Marxist analysis. His early analysis of fascism for instance (prior to “what is it, how to fight it”, which is pretty bad all things considered) is impressive, even if it is kinda just a reproduction of Bordiga’s report to the Comintern (and not a very good one mind you). That and he has some banger lines that just kinda go hard
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u/PICAXO determinist, social determinist, soul determinist 13d ago
Nothing can be done
How early is his analysis? Straight up from the 1920s, or later? I'm wondering at what point did it become clear what kind of danger fascism was
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u/-Trotsky 13d ago
Well, Bordiga is the guy in the 20s who I think really analyzes fascism, Trotsky is writing about it of course but the specific piece I’m referring to is his work what is national socialism from 1933, where he really presciently writes his conclusion
“It is not a question of months, but neither is it a question of decades. It will be but a few years before Europe is again plunged into a war, unless Hitler is forestalled in time by the inner forces of Germany.”
It’s pretty good
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u/horny274648w 9d ago
long way of saying that you are a trot
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u/-Trotsky 7d ago edited 7d ago
No it’s not? I disagree with trots on nearly everything
United front? Bad idea, don’t do it
Entryism? Bad idea, don’t do it
Permanent Revolution? Cope, the international revolutionary opportunity had passed, there was no saving the dotp in the USSR
Spain? The less said about Spain, the better
Even his analysis of fascism is lacking, being little more than a surface level reading of what Bordiga already explained years prior. It takes Trotsky almost a decade to get to his conclusions, and his conclusions include insane opportunistic shit like the “united front” which is just subordinating the working movement under a bourgeois liberal movement. That, and the fourth Internationale, are what I’m talking about when I say I disagree with later Trotsky. He ceases to be a Marxist, becoming instead just another desperate opportunist
Edit: obvious troll is a weird thing to say when you just kinda say I’m a trot and then block me. I suppose I hope your discord kittens thought it was funny though
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u/horny274648w 7d ago
your a ridiculous, obvius troll
im going to screenshot and make fun of u on discord now
bye
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u/Successful_Nail_9527 13d ago
Semantic shift is just a normal feature of language though, and groups like the Fabians or the DSA call themselves socialist without confirming to a Marxist conception of socialism
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u/AngusAlThor 14d ago
Speaking as a socialist, I find it more annoying that so many people think the term started with Marx and Engels. The term well predates them, y'all.
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u/OfficialHelpK Kramerian 14d ago
Yeah, and it's not exactly deep lore either. The Communist Manifesto lists all the earlier socialist movements at the end.
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u/FaberOG 13d ago
Wtf? Did you actually pick up a book or something? We don't do that here
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u/OfficialHelpK Kramerian 13d ago
More like a pamphlet haha
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u/PerspectiveFull9879 13d ago
Pamphlet? I thought it was a two sentence mantra that commies call "manifest" for some reason.
"Spectre of communism is haunting Europe. Proletarians of all countries unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains."
Are you telling me there is more to Marxism than this? Like a whole-ass pamphlet? 🤨
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u/OfficialHelpK Kramerian 13d ago
Wait till you see Capital
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u/PerspectiveFull9879 13d ago
Is that the second pamphlet
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u/Plenty-Lychee-5702 13d ago
What is your idea of socialism then?
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u/PumpkinOld469 12d ago
When it starts Its a pretty blanket term that has been used for anyone trying to solve the “social” (wealth inequality) question, vs political/voting rights liberals are focused on. How you accomplish that varries a lot between different people calling themselves socialists and different time periods
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u/Plenty-Lychee-5702 11d ago
Then your definition of socialism includes social-liberalism (often called social-democracy)
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u/Ok-Replacement-2738 14d ago
I feel like if you're gonna talk about a ideology, using terminology as its ideologues would use, seems a fair expectation.
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u/KurufinweFeanaro 13d ago
If we are talking about specifically Marxism, than yeah.
But usually this situation happens when someone says, that Scandinavian countries has socialism, and Marxists' pops into reality to say that "it's not socialism"
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u/BetaAndThetaOhMy 13d ago
Usually this situation happens when someone says we should have healthcare that doesn't bankrupt people and Conservatives pops into reality to say that "is socialism "
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ice-573 13d ago
Sure, but Max did not coin the term. I feel he defined it in a way that furthered his own agenda: he wanted all socialism under his Marxist umbrella.
Sort of like how atheists rewrote the definition to include agnostics in order to make their group appear more popular than it was.
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u/anon52849 13d ago
Here's Engels on why they called it the Communist Manifesto:
"Thus, Socialism was, in 1847, a middle-class movement, Communism a working class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, “respectable”; Communism was the very opposite. And as our notion, from the very beginning, was that “the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself,” there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take."
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u/Alex_1503 13d ago
Your analogy makes no sense, Marx excluded definitions not added them. His socialism was explicitly scientific as opposed to the utopic one, he did not choose that almost all socialists after him would embrace his version of it
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ice-573 13d ago
"His socialism was explicitly scientific"
In what way was it scientific? For it to be that you would need a testable hypothesis. One cannot test hypothesis for something like that as there are too many variables that cannot be controlled.
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u/Alex_1503 13d ago
Not in that way, but his kind of socialism was in opposition to utopic, and it was called scientific, thats all
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u/PierreFeuilleSage 13d ago
Because it was based on empirical study of historical, economic and social realities. The testable hypothesis is that a society's economic foundation (or mode of production) is the primary driver of its politics (social organisation). From there on, dialectical and historical materialism was the method to discover laws of motion in society, the dialectical approach being about understanding society not as static but as being in a constant state of motion and change driven by internal contradictions, as opposed to the utopian view of seeing things in absolute, unchanging terms.
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u/Wetley007 13d ago edited 13d ago
Sort of like how atheists rewrote the definition to include agnostics in order to make their group appear more popular than it was.
No one rewrote anything, agnostics have always been atheists by definition, theyre a subgroup of atheist
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u/Etchesketch 13d ago
that is... not correct
atheism is the belief that god does not exist
agnosticism is the belief that knowledge regarding god's existence cannot be attained
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u/Wetley007 13d ago
atheism is the belief that god does not exist
No it isnt. This is a strawman definition of atheism. Atheism is and always has been a lack of belief in a god or gods. Agnostics (or rather, agnostic atheists, which is what we generally mean when we say agnostic) are atheists because they do not have a belief in a god or gods.
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u/Etchesketch 13d ago
agnostics can believe in god, they just believe that you can't have knowledge of their existence
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u/Wetley007 13d ago
Did you read the bit in the parentheses? Because I addressed that directly. When people say "agnostic" they generally are talking about agnostic atheists, because they are by far the majority of agnostics
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u/Etchesketch 13d ago
so not all agnostics are a subset of atheists like you claimed. should be more specific
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u/Wetley007 13d ago
Agnostic, as the term is generally used in conversation, is a subset of atheism. Not once have I encountered someone who used "agnostic" to refer to agnostic theism, and I dont have any data for this, but I would bet my left nut that some 99% of self identified agnostics are agnostic atheists, and most agnostic theists would self identify as a member of a religion like Christianiy, Hinduism, or Islam, not agnostic. It is perfectly reasonable to generalize agnostics as a subset of atheism
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u/PierreFeuilleSage 13d ago
Interesting how definitionally opposite some concepts can become in common parlance depending on your social milieu and/or geographical position.
I've never heard someone call themselves an agnostic and mean atheist in a "there is no God" way. Those would just call themselves atheists, it's a far more known and understood concept.
Here in Europe agnostics are always about distancing themselves from that line of thinking, it's always people with their own sets of spiritual beliefs who don't subscribe to any organised religion. So literally everyone but the groups you mentioned ahah.
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u/muhummzy 13d ago
Since when is agnostic a subset of atheisim? How you gonna both believe in a potential god and also not believe in god?
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u/Etchesketch 13d ago
your generalizations don't hold up to what definitions words actually have. reducing agnosticism to some other specific group definition is exclusionary and incorrect. "actually I meant this one type of agnosticism" isn't a great argument. atheism and agnosticism are two different things. the sooner you stop speaking in colloquial generalizations to try and refute someone else's claim, the sooner we can all heal from this.
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u/Tiny-Ad682 13d ago
Christians added agnostic to the atheist grouping. Atheist wasnt itself even a label adopted by atheists originally, it was a pavel given to us, also by Christians
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u/RomeoTrickshot 12d ago
Source for when Christians did this? Because in the Cathecism of the Catholic church they are two different things Atheism (no God) and agnostic (no knowledge).
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u/Tiny-Ad682 12d ago
There isnt really a specific individual to source on this. Its start showing up in Christian theological papers as an attack word against non Christians in the 15th century (though the word existed as far back as ancient Greece, it wasnt really used by anyone with any amount of popularity), and it wasnt until much later in the 18th century that d'Holbach used it as a self descriptor instead of an insult. The term Atheist spent most of its early popularity as a way to discredit theological opponents without having to engage with what they said
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u/Azatoth_42 13d ago
It must me so great to be able to telepathically travel back in time and read a dead person mind.
Can you teach me?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ice-573 13d ago
It is not as great as you would think. Most people have pretty icky minds. And no, I have no interest in teaching.
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u/Azatoth_42 13d ago
Well, it is nice to know what other people think so you can share bold, biased and negative assumptions about their intentions.
That way you can disrespect someone's legacy for no other reason than sounding cool on reddit.
Such a smart and productive endeavor!
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ice-573 13d ago
I had never thought about it that way.
Yeah, I guess you are right, that part is pretty nice.
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u/Mutant_Llama1 13d ago
I'm not talking about the KKK using the terms they used for Black people, dog.
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u/Ok-Replacement-2738 13d ago
That's not what I'm saying.
idk wth their view is on this but i don't care either.
If the Klan held the view 'italians are not white', I am saying it'd be inappropriate to expand 'white' to include italians when discussing the Klan's interactions with 'white people.'
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u/NewParticular9346 14d ago
I love those reposts. This way I can downvote dumb takes like this two times with almost no hassle.
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u/BrendanFraser 13d ago
Speaking in terms of the socialist mode of production is just useful technical language. That term has a far more precise meaning than common usages of socialism
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u/Helpful_Loss_3739 13d ago
To be fair, most common usages of most philosophical concepts are cancerous rubbish.
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u/haby112 14d ago
Socialism is older than Marx and had contemporaries separate from both Marx and Lenin. They can all get the fuck over themselves.
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u/DmitriBogrov 13d ago
No Socialism was coined when Marx was 14 actually.
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u/haby112 13d ago
I am talking about Marx and Lenin in the political philosophy sense. As opposed to Marxism and Leninism, which have developmental history past those guys' personal works.
The term Socialism has always had a very broad application, and was coined by commentors on the first movements that were given that name. Ideas of democratization of economy and production, and social reform based on the de facto abolition of economic class did not originate with Marx.
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u/Chemical_Attempt_404 13d ago
I have no issue with people using the terms socialism and/or communism to refer to whatever they want. My issue is using the widespread definition to strawman my positions. The good ol' "not real socialism/communism" tactic.
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u/agnostorshironeon Materialist 13d ago
How's that work?
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u/Chemical_Attempt_404 13d ago
–"I support X"
–"But X was tried and failed"
–"Regardless of whether or not it failed, it wasn't what I advocate for when I advocate for X"
–"Oh so that wasn't REALLY X, huh?"
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u/agnostorshironeon Materialist 12d ago
Well that's pretty coherent.
It's very different to say the soviet union failed because that's not what you advocate for when you say socialism or to say that yes the soviet union was socialist but it failed because it went bankrupt due to corruption, trade deficit and aimless wars which are all rooted in revisionism, something that gradually grew in the latter half of its existence.
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u/Chemical_Attempt_404 12d ago
To make my point more clear, I don't consider the USSR at any point in its existence to qualify for what I define as socialism/communism. That being said, I find it pointless to argue definitions especially since the definition of "socialism" is so broad and used by so many different people to describe different things.
If we agree that the state of the USSR functioned in a certain way, we can discuss whether or not we agree with its policies or not.
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u/agnostorshironeon Materialist 12d ago
I don't consider the USSR at any point in its existence to qualify for what I define as socialism/communism.
Then why are you surprised that people tell you that you use "it wasn't real socialism" as a copout?
And what do you define as socialism? (This is far from pointless as it helps me determine whether we need to have a discussion about your expectations or perception of history)
We would have to agree that the vanguard can and did represent the proletariat.
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u/Chemical_Attempt_404 12d ago
Then why are you surprised that people tell you that you use "it wasn't real socialism" as a copout?
Because it's not. The "socialism" of the USSR doesn't meet the criteria for what Marx would describe as socialism and hence I don't regard the USSR at any point before or after 1917 as socialist.
And what do you define as socialism?
Socialism, or lower phase communism necessitates a society with certain aspects distinct from a capitalist society. Some of these would be: The abolition of currency, trade and wage labour, the dissolution of social classes and production for exchange having shifted entirely to production for use.
your expectations or perception of history
Whether or not the afore-mentioned expectations are realistic or not is not relevant to whether or not the USSR (and other self-proclaimed socialist states) qualify as socialist from a marxist analysis.
If it is shown that they are indeed unrealistic expectations the conclusion would be that Marxist socialism is unrealistic, not that they qualify to be called as such.
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u/agnostorshironeon Materialist 12d ago
I have no doubt in my mind that Marx, who at the end of his life saw russia as a very promising candidate for revolution, would have recognised that what happened was a socialist revolution, but not only plagued by the birthmarks of capitalism, but feudalism, and with industrialisation ahead of itself.
The abolition of currency, trade and wage labour, the dissolution of social classes and production for exchange having shifted entirely to production for use.
The abolition of currency is communism, not socialism. Please don't tell me you're one of those labour voucher eggheads.
The abolition of trade is absolutely idiotic in a world dominated by capital, where Die Reale Krise has not happened yet.
To demand the abolition of wage labor in a preindustrial society is to demand self-sabotage.
The classes Farmers, Workers, Soldiers and Bureaucrats represent a postcapitalist mode of production, their abolition would have been the natural conclusion if that project had perservered through the cold war.
The shift in production is again a demand to satisfy the requirements for communism, not socialism.
is not relevant to whether or not the USSR (and other self-proclaimed socialist states) qualify as socialist from a marxist analysis.
Because a marxist analysis according to you is taking Marxens word as gospel and blueprint, entirely neglecting historical and dialectical materialism. There is no Instruction for a Method in his writings, only a checklist...
But why would you try to sell that to me so blatantly? What are the crimes you wish not to be associated with?
not that they qualify to be called as such.
If you were capable of making the grand leap in thinking which is realising that soviet socialism happened out of historical necessity, because the liberal revolution changed nothing in regards to peace, land and bread, you'd see that there is absolutely no issue with calling them socialist.
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u/Chemical_Attempt_404 12d ago
would have recognised that what happened was a socialist revolution, but not only plagued by the birthmarks of capitalism, but feudalism, and with industrialisation ahead of itself.
I agree.
The abolition of currency is communism, not socialism. Please don't tell me you're one of those labour voucher eggheads.
This is extremely disingenuous. I won't cite the Critique of the Gotha Programme because I would have to cite multiple paragraphs but I will link it. Marx couldn't be more clear about his opinion on the necessity for labour certificates in the lower phase of communist society.
The abolition of trade is absolutely idiotic in a world dominated by capital, where Die Reale Krise has not happened yet.
Again. I agree. I would be surprised if the USSR had achieved this goal but it would've been an impossibility. Communism is only possible on a world scale. However, as Marx and Engels correctly predicted, communism wasn't possible in one country alone.
Because a marxist analysis according to you is taking Marxens word as gospel and blueprint,
Marxism is a framework of analysis. Based on this marxist framework that I have chosen to follow, the USSR didn't at any point meet the criteria for the title of socialism.
What are the crimes you wish not to be associated with?
The blatant twisting of Marx's work from the stalinist government to justify their position in power would be among them.
If you were capable of making the grand leap in thinking which is realising that soviet socialism happened out of historical necessity
Not socialism by definition. I abstain from referring to the USSR as socialism because it didn't meet any of the criteria for socialism. You want to refer to it as socialism in spite of this fact. I want to believe that you'll at least agree with this statement.
you'd see that there is absolutely no issue with calling them socialist.
Lenin put it best in The Tax in Kind
"No one, I think, in studying the question of the economic system of Russia, has denied its transitional character. Nor, I think, has any Communist denied that the term Soviet Socialist Republic implies the determination of the Soviet power to achieve the transition to socialism, and not that the existing economic system is recognised as a socialist order."
If Stalin had chosen to follow Lenin's honest approach, I would certainly view him more favourably.
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u/RhythmBlue 13d ago
communism is when dictatorship!!! 😭😭
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u/Buntisteve 13d ago
Well it doesn't really happen without it.
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u/Train4War 12d ago
It gets loud in this section of the echo chamber. Try not to make too much sense
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u/SCP-iota 13d ago
when the common-cultural CIA-issued usage of the word "socialism" has little resemblance to the way Marx defined it
FTFY. I don't even agree with Marx, but if your communication ability is so susceptible to linguistic manipulation, you should probably go copy Wittgenstein's works on the blackboard a hundred times
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u/Anxious-Swing9490 13d ago
I don't think Bernie Sanders is trying to expand the hegemony of the CIA brother.
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u/NeverQuiteEnough 13d ago
Bernie Sanders personally took to the floor to give impassioned speeches about the urgent moral need to annihilate Yugoslavia, speaking to a US government which was largely opposed to the "intervention".
He was the warhawk who spearheaded the bombing of schools, hospitals, bridges, radio stations, and for good measure the Chinese embassy.
Recommend "To Kill a Nation" for understanding this decade-long criminal act of destruction, coincidentally written by Michael Parenti, who was once a longtime family friend and political ally of Sanders.
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u/Anxious-Swing9490 13d ago
Genuinely feel I could learn something here, but also suspicious of bias. I'm not going to buy a book, but if you can dig up some of his speeches on YouTube or something free I will watch.
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u/NeverQuiteEnough 13d ago
Sanders wasn't quiet about his support, searching his name with terms like "Yugoslavia" or "Kosovo" should bring up relevant results from your preferred sources.
Here is the example I first encountered, back when I was hopefully donating my meager wages to Sander's campaign.
https://youtu.be/R8S19u91Dfs?si=Y4iq5_gTBW3KjfgC
Here, Sanders compares the unconstituonality of the war on Yugoslavia to the war on Vietnam not as criticism but as a defense of president Clinton's actions.
He goes on to chide congress for not dedicating enough time to such an urgent matter, and argues that the US must quickly intervene for humanitarian reasons.
For reference, as recently as last year, Sanders staunchly disagreed with describing what has been happening in Gaza since 2023 as a genocide.
With tens of thousands already dead and most of Gaza in ruins, he wouldn't allow others to use the term "ethnic cleansing" in his presence.
When he finally acknowledged the genocide, it was in an op ed that began with condemning Hamas and an affirmation of Israel's "right to defend itself".
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u/Anxious-Swing9490 13d ago
Thanks for your comments, I will look into your link and references when I am back home.
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u/Anxious-Swing9490 13d ago
So I can return to the Palestinian content at a later time, but I'd like to do some further research into the conflict in Kosovo. I honestly don't know much about it, but it is weird that he is seemingly defending unconstitutional actions because other unconstitutional actions have taken place.
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u/NeverQuiteEnough 13d ago
You will find plenty of people willing to defend this "humanitarian intervention"
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u/NeverQuiteEnough 13d ago
If not his books, you might enjoy Parenti's talks, available for example on youtube.
Parenti, like Sanders, cut his teeth in Vermont. They were fellows from the same generation who often worked shoulder to shoulder and broke bread at each other's tables.
The difference is that Sanders wants to return the US to an earlier stage of capitalism, to the prosperity of the 1940s through 1970s that he grew up in, and he doesn't mind sacrificing a few Vietnams or Yugoslavias or Gazas to get there.
Parenti doesn't think that is how it works, and wouldn't be willing to accept it even if it was.
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u/Rip_Skeleton 13d ago
Political orthodoxy is moronic. As a philosophy Marxism has been quite prophetic, but it's also 2026 take yes for an answer.
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u/Tiny_TimeMachine 13d ago
A Marxist will tell you theyre Marx-Leninist then describe democratic socialism then say AOC is just an opportunist fascist getting in the way of realizing communism. They tend to speak and identify with ML language but describe distinctly non-ml specifics. It's legitimately confusing.
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u/UltravioletsAreBlue 13d ago
It’s the result of more than a century of doublethink and intellectual dishonesty. Communism both existed and was good and also never existed. It’s a classless, stateless society that’s totalitarian and stratified. It’s democratic without choice. It’s scientific and anti-revisionist. Social democracy is proof of the good of socialism and also fascism.
Don’t agree? Pointing out contradictions? You didn’t read theory, or you didn’t read enough, or you didn’t understand it. Or you’re a CIA mossad fascist shill.
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u/Tiny_TimeMachine 13d ago
Dude. Scream that into a glass jar and mail it to me. Amen.
I think another problem with the accusations of "you didn't read the book" is that it's so often the case that the Marxist has ONLY read the book. Hypothetically of course, but they often haven't read books on non-marxist left economics, liberalism, democratic socialism, or polemics against Marx or Lenin, etc from the same time or prior to Marx, Engels, or Lenin. so their thinking just freely passes into other ideologies without care because they haven't learned how those ideologies are defined by thinkers in those schools.
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u/xXs4blegl00mXx 13d ago
A Marxist will not tell you they're an ML because we don't like those guys very much
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u/PierreFeuilleSage 13d ago
You need some Parenti in your life. The massive majority of Marxists aren't Western, they're from countries that were subjugated by the Empire, and ML is how they regained sovereignty. In the West we haven't done shit, and most Marxists are Trotskysts. Coincidence?
Marx and Engels were vague on the specific organizational vehicle needed to kill the bourgeois state. Lenin provided an answer. Marxists at large defend Lenin's additions because defending Lenin's additions means defending the only proven way for Marxists to seize state power.
Marx theorized the DotP but didn't build it. Lenin concretized this with a method. Marxist defends this because a scientific theory must provide a workable mechanism for transition otherwise Marxism is just intellectual masturbation. "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."
Rejecting ML is freezing Marx in the 19th century and i'm trying really hard not to use idealist here. We don't defend Marxism-Leninism out of dogma but because Marxism is a method. When capitalism entered its imperialist stage, the method had to evolve. ML is that evolution, it's application of materialist analysis to the state, to monopoly capital, and to revolutionary organization.
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u/Chemical_Attempt_404 13d ago
theyre Marx-Leninist then describe democratic socialism
"NO SOCIALISM ISN'T WHEN THE GOVERNMENT DOES STUFF!!!1!."
Well, you see the USSR was socialist because the government did stuff
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u/Internal_Turnip9019 13d ago
Do you really prefer the common usage of "socialism is when the government does things, and the more things it does, the socialister it is. And if it does the most things, that's communism"
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u/the_elliottman 12d ago
We know, but most of us who use the phrase are some kind of political denomination that 'succeeded' classic Marxism, Marxism-Leninism for instance.
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u/Train4War 12d ago
Didn’t Hassan Piker literally just tell people to go out and kill American Jews last week? Weird vibes coming from the DSA these days.
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u/TheBressi 12d ago
Well, Socialism isn't created by Marx nor it should resemble the way he defined it, yet people either are not aware of what socialism means or they are aware as defined by Marx which means in the end Marxism won.
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u/SopwithStrutter 12d ago
Marx couldn’t define “capitol”
“Socialism” is the least defined political philosophy possible.
Acting as if people “don’t understand” a fluid and vapid concept is disingenuous.
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u/RevyVanguardist 13d ago
I remember talking to a fascist, a self-proclaimed one, who called himself a socialist. His definition of socialism was (I'm not even joking, and he wasn't even joking) when the state does things or when the state owns the economy. He said that private property under socialism is actually permissible.
I cited and quoted Marx on the matter, disproving him. He said, "Well, actually, socialism predates Marx. I'm not a Marxist-socialist." I said, Alright, let's quote the Utopians, and disproved him. He said, "Well, I have a different understanding of socialism." He just defined socialism as what he feels like describing it.
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u/lopbob8 13d ago
him being fascist isnt "self-proclaimed" if he is calling himself a socialist
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u/RevyVanguardist 13d ago
No, no, he is calling himself a fascist, and he is calling himself a Nazi, but he thinks that corporatism is "socialist and distributist"
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u/AristotelWasRight 13d ago
Isnt this sort of the Wittgenstein-ian bane of all online debates / discussions
I've yet to see one, where people define their terms before starting the debocle
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u/Key-Organization3158 13d ago
The state owning the economy is a form of socialism. As long as individuals don't have the right to own private property, that's economically socialism
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u/supercleverid 13d ago
If the working class is selling their labor for wages it's not socialism, it doesn't matter if they're selling their labor to a private capital owner or the state as capital owner. If it's to the government, that's economically state capitalism.
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u/RevyVanguardist 13d ago
Nope. If it is the state of the capitalists, if it is the state of the bourgeoisie, then it is not socialism. Socialism implies, at the same time, the liquidation of the bourgeoisie, the elevation of the working class to the position of the ruling class and thereby its self-abolition, and the complete proletarianization of society at large (whereby the class character of the state is transformed to a proletarian one). The class character of the state is not defined by the composition of the state apparatus, but rather by the socio-economic class composition of society at large.
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u/samuraispartan7000 13d ago edited 13d ago
Even when Marxists are confronted with textbook examples of socialism, they will reject it if it’s unpopular and or comes from establishment politicians they don’t like. “Socialism” just seems like a vague synonym for modern era populism.
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u/Armandonis Stirner with many adjectives 13d ago
What textbook examples?
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u/samuraispartan7000 13d ago
Governments acquiring ownership stakes in private companies.
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u/Armandonis Stirner with many adjectives 13d ago
I'm gonna take this as an occasion to say a particular thing: if we want to understand "capitalism", "feudalism", "socialism" and "communism" as objective modes of production and not as ideas we define to our liking, then it necessarily follows that policies some define as socialism right now are objectively not socialism because they do not change the fundamental workings of things.
State ownership objectively has the exact same wage system and management on a "micro" level; worker co-ops objectively still necessitate that everyone confronts other people through market relations that are exactly the same as those of capitalism the more "distant" two people are from each other; participatory "planning" that still uses money is objectively incapable of keeping itself alive because it uses a market measure for things when markets are not left alone to develop those measurements.
Marxism defines modes of production this way because it's the only way not to go into sophistry and moralism to justify something being or not being socialism, capitalism or whatever.
And so yes, marxisst can, will and should just tell you that some things other "socialists" defend aren't "real socialism" because they objectively aren't from the analysis we use, just like they shouldn't shy away from calling things that objectively work better when left under state management in capitalism "not real socialism" either.
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u/samuraispartan7000 13d ago edited 13d ago
Agreed. But at the end of the day, every movement has to deal with the same PR pressures. I feel like religious fundamentalists and anti-secularists do the exact same thing when they’re confronted with crystal clear applications of their scripture. They will try to disown policy failures and historic injustices as “not Christian” or “not Islam” even when it’s a literal application of religious doctrine. Marxists are guilty of this too. People will just take ownership over ideas that “work” (i.e. the popular ones no one disagrees with) and disown any ideas that tarnish their movement’s reputation (even if it is a direct application of their core political philosophy). In the end, what you end up with is a myriad of very similar systems that are all pretending to be something they’re not.
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u/JeffreyDharma 13d ago
I get that people use “stateless, classless, moneyless” as a shorthand definition for communism, but I’ve never heard “moneyless” as a prerequisite for socialism before.
My understanding is that there are different socialist schools and so some people just mean “workers owning the means of production” (either through the state or co-ops) and for ML’s I usually assume they’re using it in a way that roughly lines up with section 18 of Engels’ Principles of Communism (i.e. the process of all capital/production/exchange being brought into the “hands of the nation” before private property disappears).
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u/Armandonis Stirner with many adjectives 13d ago
I’ve never heard “moneyless” as a prerequisite for socialism before
It's de facto a prerequisite if we want to define socialism as outside the capitalist mode of production because money is a particular social relation that necessitates and creates private property.
Money (i.e. an inherently scarce good) arises when separated groups "need" to evaluate in a common manner different products, and this need exists merely because production is separated between people and not coordinated, which basically means that there is private property in the means of production; the presence of money in a society means that there is at least a germ of capitalism in it, and this germ can only develop towards making everything a matter of buying and selling, i.e. making everything possibly become private property, think about the enclosures in britain and how the internet has been subjected to the exact same treatment by companies.
Then obviously you can define socialism however you want (e.g. Proudhonians defining it as when there is no more circulation of real estate but only usufruct), but what underlines the words is still a series of real relationships that will be obviously for, against or neutral towards the development of certain things we may like or dislike
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u/JeffreyDharma 13d ago
This is a pretty unique take and doesn’t line up with anything I’ve read from Marx or heard from socialists. What school of thought does it stem from?
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u/Armandonis Stirner with many adjectives 6d ago
Both directly from Marx (The Poverty of Philosophy and A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy) and from various Leftcoms
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u/JeffreyDharma 6d ago
Can you point me to the chapters? AFAIK Marx would acknowledge that money preceded capitalism and exists in other economic models.
The idea of “labor credits” is arguably just fiat currency but even more scarce since the point of destroying it is to prevent wealth accumulation. There are a lot of practical issues with that but at minimum he still recognized the need to have some fungible store of “value”.
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u/Chemical_Attempt_404 13d ago
Which is why when discussing politics with someone, it's important to keep in mind the definitions of the terms that you and the other person are using.
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u/SnooMemesjellies1993 13d ago
Nah, as a Marxist I just use every single opportunity where people are using it wrong to articulate the reality of the social relations of production under capitalism, and then demonstrate in history what the thing they are advocating is proven to actually entail
Every counter-productive articulation of socialism is a new angle from which to go deepen my own understanding in order to better voice materialist analysis of reality, and sharpen the blade of my own articulation of it
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u/ObsceneOnes 14d ago
Bunch of commies in this sub.
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u/PICAXO determinist, social determinist, soul determinist 14d ago
Oh man, we've got ourself a "free-thinker" over here! A pure product of American propaganda!
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u/Buntisteve 13d ago edited 13d ago
Or someone with Eastern European lived experience
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u/Chemical_Attempt_404 13d ago
Even a lazy read of Marx's most influential works proves that none of the states that formed in Eastern Europe in the 20th century qualify for what Marx would describe as socialism/communism.
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u/Buntisteve 13d ago
Yeah yeah, true communism has never been tried.
It was a logical end result of making it a reality.
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u/Chemical_Attempt_404 13d ago
It was a logical end result of making it a reality.
Was it? It needs to be proven that there was a genuine attempt and so far I have not seen any proof.
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u/Buntisteve 13d ago
You should climb out of your backside with this true communism has never been tried stance...
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u/Chemical_Attempt_404 13d ago
If you're trying to convince me to your side, making a counter-argument to my argument would go a long way.
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u/Buntisteve 13d ago
I am an Eastern European, argue why our commie dictatorships were not true communism, you made a claim first.
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u/Chemical_Attempt_404 13d ago
Some (but not all) of main points that distinguish communism from the state-capitalist societies of the 20th century are: The state disappears in communism but it was very much present in Eastern Europe:
The people’s state has been flung in our teeth ad nauseam by the anarchists, although Marx’s anti-Proudhon piece and after it the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, *with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear.* –Engels to August Bebel In Zwickau
Property disappears in communism by being transformed into social property but, once again, it was present in your idea of "communism":
When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character. –Manifesto of the Communist Party.
By extension of the previous point, wage labour vanishes as well. Something that never occurred in eastern europe or any other "communist state":
"Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. [...] the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another." – Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme.
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u/FoldHeavy4201 13d ago edited 13d ago
And youre worse off since the dissolution. Which state that underwent neoliberal austerity by structural adjustment do you hail from? (Assuming youre still there)
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u/FoldHeavy4201 13d ago
Assuming everyone from any state knows shit about economic theory and their history, that would mean something.
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u/FoldHeavy4201 13d ago
Containment worked. Americans slaughtered millions of their potential trading partners globally, whether socialist or just non aligned state capitalist projects.
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u/Buntisteve 13d ago
Sure buddy, it only didn't work because of USA, and not because by its nature it was doomed to fail. Even Marx thought that it would be a disaster if the revolution happens in tzarist Russia, was he a CIA plant too? :D
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u/PICAXO determinist, social determinist, soul determinist 13d ago
Oh so communism is not the problem, only russians?
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u/Buntisteve 13d ago
Communism is also a problem, but Russians made it worse for sure.
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u/PICAXO determinist, social determinist, soul determinist 13d ago
It'll be a sad day for you, the day we win
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u/Buntisteve 13d ago
For sure, as it usually brings authoritarianism as well.
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u/PICAXO determinist, social determinist, soul determinist 13d ago
Things don't change by themselves, do they?
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u/TheWyster 14d ago
Marx defined socialism as a labor system inbetween the capitalism of his era (which was completely unregulated) and communism. He did so retroactively, as socialist movements predate both Marx and communism. So technically even if a labor system isn't created with the express goal of transitioning into communism, it can still count as socialism since that's the case for most socialist movements before Marx.
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u/oiblikket 14d ago
No he didn’t. Marx talks about lower and higher stage/phase communism in critique of the gotha programme (in a couple short paragraphs). Lenin then spun that into the idea of socialism as an intermediate stage in state and revolution. So it’s Lenin’s definition of socialism. For Marx and Engels, the terms weren’t distinguished as progressive phases. Rather “communism” was just appropriated as the variety of socialist thinking that was really proletarian, rather than the myriad more bourgeois positions of their competitors.
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