Had this convo last night. Friend is confused as hell about what is left/right. Frustrating trying to undo years of doublethink.
The conversation wound up with this: How do you best raise a child? With one parent's word being the only thing to consider like a god? Or with the help of aunts/uncles, siblings, family, doctors, teachers, community, etc, to help them form their own opinion? Then ask yourself why is it that everyone considering themselves "conservative" spends the majority of the time screaming about how each one of those things is the enemy.
Yeah, I have a terminally racist relative and was trying to explain to her why we should look after refugees. I asked her if her neighbor's house burnt down whether she would invite them inside and offer them some shelter and comfort, and she agreed that "of course" she would. Then I asked about if it was someone from the next street over, and she immediately became hesitant about it. Sometimes I think as a species we just never psychologically evolved beyond living in a tiny village and fearing anyone we don't know personally.
She saw where you were going. Or there is someone she's racist towards that lives on the next street.
But this is the best way to both keep discussions level headed and root out the real cause of the opposition. Avoid the labels and names and just talk about general ideas, see how far they will go with "hypotheticals" that don't trigger the reactions they've been embedded with. Even better, some street epistemology, often used with religion but it can be for any beliefs. The basic idea is to ask the person about their own beliefs and guide them in reasoning why they think that. It's far more complex than just that, but that's the idea, to let them come to conclusions themselves rather than some debate where their defense will come up and block any more discussion.
when talking to my parents, if I say "community" instead of "communism," or "nobody deserves to starve" instead of "free food", and "help vulnerable people" instead of "benefits" and "everyone deserves to feel safe from harm" instead of XYZ - everyone wholeheartedly agrees!
But if I let them go off on a tangent without guiding them, then they're "anti woke" even though they don't know what woke means
I love socialism but what is with North American kid's love for communism? I assume you guys love the idea of it but you must know that the idea of communism relies on humans not being selfish and humans willingness to share the wealth and power which is not a reality. I say this as someone who has lived and grown up under an oppressive, communist regime, not just as someone who romanticizes it.
Communism is an idea. Just as capitalism is.
What fucked up things people do with that is an entirely different problem.
You can have an oppressive communist regime. You can also have an oppressive capitalistic regime. Both could be really good and beneficial for everyone.
Heck, even a dictatorship could be a good governing system given a wise and benevolent dictator who has the best of all in their mind.
The problem with all of these economic, governmental and societal systems are humans. All of those systems require a specific set of properties from humans in order to work well. The problem is, that not all humans meet those requirements. There is no system which takes humans as they are, with all their good qualities and all of their faults, to get the best out of humanity for humanity.
From an engineering perspective, this is really stupid. But it's immensely difficult as well. There are no simple solutions to the complexity of humans and their interactions. Which is why systems with self-correcting mechanisms might have an advantage. For example, democracies. However, those too have many pitfalls to address.
Point is, communism is not inherently bad. It can be good, if no one exploits it. Even capitalism can be good, if no one is greedy and exploits others. There's a lot of ifs. Improve the system or change it. Whatever might be better. But I don't think it's as simple as blaming it all on one core idea of a system itself, rather than to look how badly it was implemented.
On that note, I'm so glad democracy was defeated forever with the fall of Athens. Everyone knows one state failing a method of government means it can never work.
you must know that the idea of communism relies on humans not being selfish and humans willingness to share the wealth and power which is not a reality.
Lol no, no it's not at all. It's actually specifically the opposite. At least for materialist communists.
If you could just rely on humans being selfless and willing to share, capitalism itself would be a great system. That's just not how it works.
Communism is more about recognizing the individualist greed and selfishness which is not only allowed but encouraged within capitalism, and limiting its harmful effects.
Again, on paper. The moment you put together a communist government with humans involved, those same communist champions will give in greed and selfishness and "everyone is equal, except for me cause I help run things so I should get a bit extra and so should my family and relatives and friends" and so on. Again, communism is great on paper but has it ever worked as it was intended? Ever?
The moment you put together a communist government with humans involved, those same communist champions will give in greed and selfishness
Did you even read what I said? Of course some people will give in to greed, that's why the system has to be formed in a way to not reward it, which capitalism does the opposite of. Greed and selfishness exist everywhere, the only difference is do you reward it or limt it's influence.
"everyone is equal, except for me cause I help run things so I should get a bit extra and so should my family and relatives and friends" and so on.
And this doesn't exist under capitalism? That's literally the basis of the exploitation of labour value...the bourgeois feel entitled to part of (most of) the workers production.
Again, communism is great on paper but has it ever worked as it was intended? Ever?
Communism itself has not, and can not exist while the global dominant order is a capitalist one.
The most we have experienced so far is different levels of socialism with different characteristics based on the historical and material realities within those countries.
Now when these socialist states have made clear their goal of communism (China, Vietnam, Cuba) then they are colloquially "communist countries" and are led by communists, but they are still in different stages of socialism out of necessity, and yes, I would say it works well in these countries, particularly better than capitalism. Though obviously no country or person is perfect.
sorry, my mistake, I totally meant to say I value "community" not "communism" ;)
(also, I'm not North American!)
Ok, but why are you putting Cuba's issues at the feet of the u.s? I get it, I mean Americans destroyed my country and killed my people by funding one side of a proxy war on my country, but the Russians funded the other. But I still blame my country's leaders for giving in and for being bought. I blame Cuban leaders for the shit show that Cuba became.
Anyways, I'm not Cuban, but I grew up in a place where communists were every bit as brutal and violent as you get. So I have an aversion to a communist government, despite the good ideas it puts forth on paper.
Also add the word 'capitalism' in there. It's like I don't even get to finish saying the word before the people I'm talking to either zones out or start defending it with: "well there is no better alternative".
... Doesn't help that it described fascism as well.
I mean that's, like, literally their name
People really need to read Marx man…
He literally described fascism decades before it was born. He said the contradictions of capitalism would cause people to look for solutions, and a “false” path people would find was that indeed capitalism had to be overcome. But that they had to return to a pre-capitalist life, return to the land and to feudalistic idealisms. Fascist Italy literally had “guilds”…
Marx said these “anti-capitalists” would see value in communist rhetoric, because they agreed with communists half-way. But they missed that the only solution is to move forward. That before capitalism, there were contradictions that inevitably led to capitalism, and it would just happen again.
Fascism is literally miopic anti-capitalism. It’s what happens to actual justifiable dissatisfaction and anger at the system without theory and understanding.
Yes, fascism really does sound like communism. It’s the goal, it’s how it’s born. It SOUNDS like communism, but has none of the solutions or the substance.
I have read Marx. I've also read Gramsci in the original Italian.
My point was just that "Fascism" comes from fascio - the binding of individual sticks together to make a stronger whole.
It's literally "Sticks together strong"
Sure, but as others have said, that is just a basic political observation that most ideologies have made. Fascism is, as I said, entirely devoid of substance. Only the appearance of such.
“Sticks together strong” is as much a political statement as “water is wet”.
I honestly don't see how literally all politics don't boil down to "apes together strong".
Some of them have smart apes manipulating the rest to use their strength against their own interest. Some of them have apes going together using their strength to enforce things we don't agree with, like racist tribalism/nationalism. But it's all a matter of people cooperating to enforce and otherwise enable what they think they need to, to meet their goal.
Isnt anarchism more scattered and small groups of people fighting one another over power?
Thats what I imagine when I hear anarchism
And that's very unfortunate that that's the most common perception of anarchism, because all anarchist theory focuses on how cooperation beats competition. The "anarchy" in the name means that nobody has rule over someone else, but rather all members voluntarily help one another because it's the most efficient and safest way of living.
But what about bad actors? Surely anarchists believe, that there are "bad people" who want personal gain/wealth/possessions by stealing or through fraud for example?
So then there needs to be a (central) authority who can make enforce rules, even if they are trivially "natural" or democratically validated.
And for that authority to do their job, they need authority over other people. The ability to lock a appartment up to investigate a murder for example. Or maybe even search a house of a alleged criminal.
Or is all of that just the capitalistic way of dealing with things and there is an other way? Or do anarchists believe that problems of that kind wont exist in their utopia?
If there is a bad tone, Im sorry, not a native speaker and I am not trying to argue in bad faith.
Edit: Thats kind of the thing about the intersection of anarchism and feminism I find curious. (In my city I see stickers like "feminists for anarchism" or "anarchy: ..., ..., and feministic")
And at the same time feminists want a stronger percicution (sorry) and punishment for sexualized crime, better institutional protection in labour-law and so on. In my view all things that are only achiveable with "more government", or at least better government/laws and certainly not with less government/rules/authorities.
That is a big question which I am sadly not equiped enough to answer adequately, as I have not invested that much time into anarchist works. What I can give is an example from Kropotkin's book "Mutual Aid":
He mentions how in village societies every dispute was treated as a comunal affair. If no resolution could be found, the case was brought to a group of people (can't remember specifically how they were chosen), and they would pass a verdict and resolution. The disputing parties could then either accept the verdict, or they would be excluded from the community. By excluded I mean that they would not enjoy the hospitality and aid of other members, and would thus have to leave the community. So if you are deemed a problematic member and won't change accordingly, nobody would exert power over you, you would just cease to be a part of the community. Obviously if someone got violent, self-defence would be acceptible.
As for feminism, I know that there is a thing called "anarcha feminism", but I don't know any details.
Thanks, sounds interesting altho on first impression it doesn't seem too viable to mee. It reminds me if the "jury" some countries have, where a group of people decide, what to do with a alleged problematic person. Am not too sure thats the best way to do it.
And also the "I am not angry, just disappointed" vibe and love-starving seems a bit odd.
It seems hard to imagine in todays world. But maybe on a local level? In Switzerland we have communal-discussions and votes as local legislation, the other two state powers on communal level are elected. Thats enough politics for most people.
That is a big question which I am sadly not equiped enough to answer adequately
It's a question Anarchists in general can't answer. But they can make some shit up, hope to get a chance to give it a go, and fail miserably some day though.
Obviously if someone got violent, self-defence would be acceptible.
So many ways to exploit weak cunts. Just threaten them, show up in force, take what you want, do fucking whatever. See where they snap and where they'll bend. Abuse their weaknesses.
Man, it's annoying what characters like Mao and Stalin (as well as America) have done to those words.
Evil Mao almost doubling the life expectancy and having an average growth rate of 7% for decades 😢
D-didn't he also destroy the agricultural system in place displacing millions of people and then destroy their cultural heritage? I might have missed a /s
I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic. But no. He didn’t.
Unless by “agricultural system” and “cultural tradition” you mean the semi-feudal system of pre-CPC China. Then yes, he did.
Now China has the highest percentage of home ownership in the world!
We currently live in a post scarcity world. Yes right now. The only reason we have poverty in today's world is that it financially benefits an extreme minority of humans on earth. We currently can provide for everyone and still live the same level of comfort we have now, but imaginary line on graph must go up.
Funnily enough, even the fascists agree. The man who convinced me of that fact, and thus of socialism compared to social democracy, was Jordan "Literally a Nazi" Peterson.
In some rant of his he threw out some factoid to claim that population growth can keep expanding forever because "each new worker produces seven times more resources than they will consume in their life"
Regardless of the literal brain damage it takes to come to that conclusion from that factoid, the actual numbers aren't far off. It's a bit more complicated but the result is the same, a post scarcity society beset by parasites.
This isn't true, if everyone in the world raised their living standards to first world countries, we would've already consumed all of earths finite resources many times over.
False. Not saying that we can change to a system that provides for everyone over night but there are no real resources scarcities. Just fascist that want you to think that way.
Hell, the word "union" is such a dirty word in tech that I've literally watched people complain about employee treatment, praise employees empowering others, while saying "I'm against unions in all forms, but (lists what a union is)".
It just goes to show that branding is important. You can list something that people would 100% agree with, tell them it's the bogeyman, and they'll change their mind immediately. Call it something else, and you'll probably have work councils (unions), community support (socialism), and premium health insurance (free healthcare).
These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.
Engels "on authority"
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
I got some rednecks to almost agree with me about socialism at a party once.
We were outside this quaint little town that was supported almost entirely by a cement factory. People in the town had been working there for three generations. The entire town depended on the factory for its existence. If that factory closed down the town would die.
But the person who makes that decision doesn't live in the town. He doesn't even live in this country. He's just some rich dude in France who can wipe an American town off the map at a whim. Didn't we fight a revolution to stop that sort of thing? Shouldn't the people who do the work have a say in what happens?
I could see the dawning realization in their eyes just before some chud pointed out that was technically socialism and that shut down the discussion.
Not technically; explicitly. Not the garbage they've been shoveled down their throats all this time. Real change with real benefits to the workers. But I guess they don't want that for whatever reason.
Could have been worse. You might have tricked them into socialism and then seen them turn it nationalist and give ownership to the police chief.
I find it funny that it costs $30k to criminalize a homeless person, and $10k to offer supportive housing. Yet we choose the expensive option.
Same with energy we have solar, and batteries.. Yet we power cars with gasoline, we have hemp yet we make things out of plastics
how do we even undo that stigma?
almost everyone i talk to who hates marxism doesnt even know what it is.
We got:
Double down and fix public perception/rectify the definition
Switch to a different term
Avoid terms all together, focus on ideas and values
Demolish any positive opinions of capitalism
Maybe there is more options, but to me #2 is probably a losing strategy, as conservatives/fascists will continue to dirty whatever new label is made, just as they've done with everything else. It'll just get us back to square 1.
A mix of #1 and #3 is probably the move. Get everybody on board with the ideas and values, while making slow progress in the background on #1.
#4 is another one that can and should always be worked on
Imo: You have to not run away from the terms whenever possible, if not even communists will say they support communism it lends credence to the idea that communism is inherently dirty and not to be associated with.
If you talk to 100 people and half agree with the principles but all leave still hating communism blindly, thats much less effective than if half agree with the principles but deny it thanks to cognitive dissonance and 1 person realizes communism might not be so bad.
Then perhaps when 2/100 of those people are communists instead of 1/100, maybe a 3rd would be willing to listen, so on.
1 commie, teach 2 commies, teach 3 commies, teach 4 commies, teach more commies.
Obviously I'm not saying to lead with a eulogy on Stalin or anything, but it should be a balance between drawing them in and not treating communism like a bad thing.
I hate marxism, but that's because I'm a Mutualist and agree with Proudhon's criticisms of Marx.
I usually just talk about worker and consumer cooperatives and if I have to name an ideology I say Mutualism.
In your view, what differentiates Mutualism from Anarcho-syndicalism, and on the other end, from Anarcho-communism?
Based on @Overshoot2648@lemm.ee 's other comments under this post Mutualism seems to be a label they really identify with, and I was just curious about why. I consider myself an anarchist but don't really read theory, so I guess I'm trying to make sense of the differences in these hyper-specific labels.
in sweden we have the concept of "folkhemmet" (the people's home) which i like a lot for this reason, it's a big part of why sweden is such a nice place to live.
Sweden has something like 20% of housing under housing cooperatives which I like as a Mutualist who doesn't like shareholder ownership or government ownership.
I think it's pretty easy to talk about the sort of political policies you want to see without feeling the need to attach political ideologies to them. You can talk about wealth redistribution all day without ever mentioning socialism.
Anarchism, not anarchy. It's the left wing variety of Libertarian (although the term Libertarian was originally synonymous with anarchism). So ideologies like Syndicalism, Distributism, Georgism, Mutualism, and some forms of Communalism are Anarchist in the economic sense as they don't rely on an authoritarian state owned economic system. This is why I get annoyed when people equate capitalism with free market and socialism with state-ownership when that's actually the authoritarian-anarchist axis. Many anarchist ideologies like Mutualism have a free commodity market, but disallow a capital market.
Call it the other name for a bundle of sticks then. Starts with the word for a British cigarette, ends with got.
It's really a winning strategy by the left. As long as the Nazis let their fascist flag fly, the left look normal.
If you don't confuse and scare people with ideology, I think you can meet them on a personal level.
I support moving the overton window this way.
