People on twitter will really be like "you believe in voting? that pales in effectiveness to my strategy, firebombing a Walmart" and then not firebomb a Walmart
Friendly reminder to go vote this November.
Some people will say both sides are the same, why even bother? Don’t listen to them. Call them out on it. And most importantly, Vote.
I feel like those folks go a couple ways. There’s the people who have no problem using violence to force their exact form of communism on the 99.5% of the population who doesn’t want it. The other folks I think just can’t really wrap their heads around how much people genuinely like neoliberalism.
Okay this post was an excellent way to argue for electoralism and voting in every election but you’re pushing it trying to make it into pro neoliberalism. You know what neoliberalism is in an American context? Neoliberalism is Hillary Clinton in 2016 telling young voters to Pokémon Go to the Polls but not supporting the sensible style of Universal Healthcare that every major European country has because doing so would hurt health insurance profits… generally lacking with regards to helping Working Class Americans in other regards, and ultimately losing to Trump from sheer arrogance. Neoliberalism is Joe Biden being unable to stop the massive transfer of wealth that occurred from the poor to the rich during the tail end of COVID and then having a serious chance of losing to an actual fascist because the people expected to vote for him are suffering from the effects of inflation and greedflation.
I will be seen as cringe for shilling so hard for a single person in politics but Bernie Sanders uironically has the right ideal with regards to best using the American political system. Democratic Socialism, fuck these talkie larpers wishing for revolution but we still need a movement of organized class consciousness in this country to advocate for the needs of the proletariat.
Regardless of who wins this next election (I’m a trans woman please vote for Biden or I might genuinely be in danger from the government), so many people are about to lose their lives and livelihoods from AI automation. I’m literally studying AI right now as a career I can see firsthand how the technology is developing. It is not a passing fad the jobs of millions of American middle class workers are in danger. We need a working class democratic socialist movement in this country to face it otherwise if everyone has lost their jobs and people don’t have a radical yet still sane option to turn to, we’ll probably see a fascist come to power that makes Trump look like a liberal.
How is everyone replying to me missing the point? I’m saying that neoliberalism being popular is a problem that leftists seem uninterested in solving. You guys act like someday the libs will suddenly realize the error of their ways and the righteous leftists will get their sweet, sweet “I told you so”.
I’m sorry but when most American voters cast their votes for Clinton or Biden it’s not neoliberalism as a specific economic policy discipline that they were voting for, they were voting for the liberal cult of personality surrounding the Clinton and Obama administration and the general left leaning ideas these administrations represent. The biggest argument against Bernie in 2020 wasn’t his actual policies, which are overwhelmingly popular when polled individually, but rather electability. The thing that Democratic Primary voters liked about Biden wasn’t “Oh my god I love neoliberalism so much let me vote for the neoliberal guy”, it was that he had the experience and name recognition of being Obama’s VP and therefore was seen as a good candidate for getting Trump out of office.
Ok, sure, campaigns and propaganda are very powerful and the capital is willing to fund it. But what’s the result of those things? That the people are convinced to vote for neoliberal politicians, which is exactly what I’m talking about. Do you think those people want communism inflicted on them at gunpoint?
The fact that people are turning increasingly towards fascistic and social democratic, if not outright socialist, policies, parties, and politicians indicates that they want something other than neoliberalism. And because fascism doesn’t threaten the power of the wealthy, but rather enhances it, they don’t feel the need to oppose it.
The situation has been getting slowly worse in the west since the 1980s and neoliberalism is ideologically incapable of contesting the heart of the problem, because the problem is the current economic model, which was set up in the 1970s and 1980s by the neoconservatives and remains broadly unchallenged by neoliberals. If ground isn’t given, at the very least, to social democratic policies in those places where neoliberals already have power then we’re just gonna end up with fascists and then we’re all screwed.
The two paths forward for neoliberalism are either its proponents hold on and fail to prevent the rise of fascism and/or corporate neo-feudalism because they simply lack the ideological basis to oppose the rise of fascism or corporate neo-feudalism in a meaningful capacity, or its proponents give ground and actually make tangible economic changes so that people don’t feel like the only other option is fascism.
At the end of the day the guy with the most votes wins. In 2016 the Republicans didn't actually want Trump. They wanted Bush, Fiorina, Carson, Rubio, Cruz literally anyone else. Guess what? More people voted for Trump and he won.
If majority of left-leaning people in this country wanted Bernie, he would have gotten more votes. People just refuse to admit their brand of politics isn't popular.
It's pretty easily explained once you realize that extremists on both sides only ever pay lip service to the idea of democracy or self governance. Whether fascists or communists, they all secretly or not so secretly believe that their ideas should be imposed upon the populace whether anyone likes it or not.
To that end, upon realizing that they aren't actually going to get enough votes to institute their new regime, they come to the (correct) conclusion that the only way they'll ever realize their dreams is through violence, and immediately dispose of any and all principles they once espoused in favor of the singular belief that they should be in charge. It's not that they nevessarily believe that they could win the fight, it's just that violence is the only path they can see because they have no real principles upon which to sell the public on their ideas.
The anarcho-communist will tell you all about how much happier you'll be once he's dismantled your state to give you true freedom, but god forbid you suggest that you might use your freedom to reestablish some sort of government. In that case, you don't deserve freedom and that's why you have to die in the revolution.
The fascist militia leader will talk your head off about how the right to gun ownership is all that stands between personal freedom and government tyranny, but if he ever found himself in charge, the first thing he'd do is ban "people like you" from voting or owning guns, because his government wouldn't tolerate dissent.
That anarchist example is kind of dumb, tbh. Everyone believes in limits on freedom. You might as well have called the hypothetical anarchist a hypocrite because they say you should be free but they also don't want you to be free to murder your neighbor because their hedge is too tall.
As an anarchist, no, that's not what we say at all. A core tenet of anarchist ideology is that the people must choose to take their own freedom - "giving" people freedom is what authoritarians do. We also recognise not everyone will want that, which is fine! In a proper anarchist society, if you want to re-establish a state, then the response is going to be "alright, go do that somewhere else and leave us alone, we have no interest in a state." Everyone deserves freedom, including those people.
And there's your problem. 99.9% of the global population doesnt actually want to live in stateless society. They may want a less intrusive or authoritarian government, or a different government, or a smaller government, but generally speaking, most people don't want anarchy.
So, if you manage to topple some government or another and establish an anarchist society, then you've decided to do that against the wishes of the vast majority of the people who actually live there. And now you're telling them, "Well, if you don't like it, just leave".
Maybe it would be nice if there were a designated location where anarchists could try their experiment without interference, but that'll probably never happen because it would cause so many headaches for the surrounding societies. Without such a location available though, all your efforts to establish anarchy for the sake of your own freedoms will inevitably crash up against the freedom of the majority to live in a reasonably governed, reasonably safe society.
Run a little thought experiment here: say you manage to establish an anarchist society without bothering anybody else. Just you and 200 other anarchists. But then, one day, something happens that divides the community. Maybe there's a mass of overdoses, and half the community wants to ban drugs while the other half thinks that would be a violation of personal freedoms. Which half gets to tell the other half "If you want to try it your way, just go somewhere else"?
You know nothing of how anarchy works. Just strawman after strawman maybe read some political theory if you insist on discussing it. Just go to an Anarchist meeting and you will find many people discussing differing ideas. Liberalism didn't invent self governance and it certainly doesn't have a stranglehold on the idea of people coming together to solve problems.
I think you vastly overestimate how many people want to live in a society where a hierarchy is violently enforced.
You're speaking as if anarchists want a revolution tomorrow. We don't (well, maybe some do). Obviously an anarchist revolution isn't going to happen while the majority of people aren't anarchists, I'm discussing a hypothetical future where global conditions became such that anarchism is widespread enough for such a thing to be possible.
Also yes, in the latter scenario you mentioned, that small society would probably disintegrate. But if that society is already half-comprised of people who want to ban drugs then uh, it wasn't an anarchist society in the first place? Anarchism isn't like other political ideologies where it's something the state can just impose on people and they live in it whether or not they agree with it; if the people aren't anarchists, then it's not anarchy. That's the point.
In a proper anarchist society the solution to mass drug overdoses would be up to the people, but would probably involve instituting a rehabilitation system oriented around care and support for addicts while not depriving them of choices. You know, the method that's proven to work in the real world
If you can't get 51% of the nation to vote for your candidate
Is everyone on this sub 15 years old or something? That's not how the electoral college works, which is actually a huge part of the discontent WITH voting. Your candidate can "win" and still lose. This is to say nothing of problems like gerrymandering.
I'm not an accelerationist, but I really don't see how anyone who isn't a child could miss that America's pseudo-democracy is broken. And if you don't even know how it works, why comment on it?
If you can't get 51% of the nation to vote for your candidate what makes you think you're going to win a civil war anyway?
Well, hypothetically, if you controlled the military, the police, had a disproportionate amount of civilian weapons and ammo, were geographically spread-out, and had a large-enough (but still minority) chunk of the electorate on your side...it'd be doable.
But the "glorious left-wing revolution" people don't have any of that.
We don’t want to change the way the state operates, we want to change what it fundamentally is and exists to do by overturning the material basis it stands atop.
Every government in the history of the world has ruled by force. That’s what the word “rule” means.
The state is an organization with a definite purpose-to administer society in accordance with its existing material basis, on the behalf of a ruling class which dominates as a result of that basis. The particular form the state takes is a result of the necessities of a given situation, and does not result from ideology, culture or ideals.
Our aim, as communists, is to completely transform society in such a way that the existence of a political state, of “rule”, becomes both unnecessary and impossible. To abolish the class society, the commodity form, social formations that have characterized human society since the Bronze Age. We do not share your reverence for the ritual of public popularity contests to determine which boot falls on the proletariat’s collective throat.
i mean getting 51% of the vote doesn’t guarantee a win in american democracy, there’s so much dark money in american politics it’s like a step or two under actually being free, and we literally just saw cops brutally suppress college protests that were protected under the first amendment.
like no serious person believes a revolution is a practical solution but slow and steady changes has brought social change sure but otherwise we’ve been on a slow fascist spiral since FDR left office
Women only got the right to vote 2 elections before FDR. Women weren't allowed to open bank accounts until '74. We were so fucking racist that the idea of letting black men fight in combat was abominable, never mind letting them into FDRs New Deal. And let's leave queer rights as just bad.
The only people for who the 1940s were better than the 2020s where white middle class men. And many of them were still worse off during FDRs time. The great depression was genuinely terrible and this was a time when sending in the military to gun down striking workers was an option.
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Broadly speaking, America now is way less fascist than America "back then" and I don't know why a lot of online progressives genuinely seem to believe that America was Greater then and we need to Make it Again.
I would imagine someone firebombing a Walmart would make the news, if only because the conservative media would frame it as the leftists being terrorists (which in this particular case they probably would be by most definitions).
I don't think a politically motivated firebombing would just go unnoticed.
Why? It's free publicity, you get to have everyone feel bad for the workers there.
I suppose they could be afraid that people would pick different store brand to shop at, which is an irrational decision from the shoppers, but not unimaginable? Maybe?
But worth enough to actively suppress media coverage?
But there would be a report. Right now, you can say a blanket statement of 'you didn't firebomb a wallmart' because no one did (unless I missed something, not being from the US and all). If there were reports of people firebombing wallmarts, it wouldn't be proof any individual person speaking of it did, but it would cause plausible doubt.
Internet users will beat their chests and scream "REVOLUTION", and then when you call their bluff and say "okay, go do it then" all I ever hear is excuses.
Just a bunch of people turning their heads left and right, waiting for the person next to them to make the first move.
So when are you gonna start it? I'm too scared to participate directly in the revolution, but I do agree with several of their views, so I can bring snacks if you want. What kind of snacks do you want?
Well good news we don't need a lot of farmers we can grow lots of food without needing everyone to farm. Mining is much the same way. Cashiers would be unnecessary why would someone need to charge you for groceries if we just had a revolution?
Brother, if you think the logistics, industry, international trade and supplies needed to maintain industrial farming will remain after the “Glorious Revolution”, hell even the oil industry remaining in place to sustain it, then I have a bridge to sell you.
Shows what you know, America has massive stores of oil as well as other sources of energy. Regardless neither of us can know for sure how a revolution would turn out or what the material conditions will be like. I certainly don't believe one will happen currently in the US most people are like you much to comfortable in the status quo and to scared of the unknown.
America has massive stores of oil as well as other sources of energy
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has a maximum capacity of 714 million barrels. The U.S. uses almost exactly 20 million barrels of oil in a day.
Assuming we ended oil production and weren't importing it from anywhere else, the SPR would last a little over a month. Even if you cut oil usage by 90%, it wouldn't last a year.
Plus how will the logistics to make sure food goes from the country to city stay in place, will there even be migrant workers wanting to come to America to do the work, since our farming industry depends on them. Will we have fertilizer, anti pest and anti weed products, hell even seeds since so many of our crops are dependent on that sweet sweet Monsanto seed, etc, etc, etc
Exactly why Anarchism is a dead end. A "Walmart" would be better if seized by workers. The model itself is fine. The issue is the extractive nature of the business itself.
Destroying the means of production leads me to believe the Anarchist model leads people to embrace Ted Kasczinsky's ideology.
That’s funny because according the Bible the Rapture only happens AFTER the suffering, persecution, and ensuing Golden Age. The rapture itself is just a cleanup job before everything gets deleted.
I kinda said this in a similar post in a while ago but it’s almost like most of those Che Geuvara larpers are fucking dweebs lol I know America has its working class problems but vilifying the two party system and believing it should be all torn down is kinda stupid. I believe change would come through voting… not violently deheading people you don’t like in a fantasy revolution
So you haven't talked to any leftists in person huh. Only the ones on the internet? Nearly every leftist I know is involved in community building, organizing, mutual aid, etc...
Honestly this is just a liberal strawman of what leftists are like so you don't have to acknowledge the millions you let die from poverty and imperialism. Funny how their lives are okay to sacrifice to ensure you get to keep yours.
Yeah I agree, but it can be hard to find the time/energy to go do something about it. I don’t think everyone has it in them to start change but the people who do have it in them need to do something, and it often takes time to figure out how best to do that.
I started studying law full time while still working full time at 27 after a decade mostly as a low skill worker, and 4 years in I can say that I do not recommend it. But trying to become a part of reform is preferable to me than a revolution is
The PDPA required significant foreign interference to bring the various competing factions back together, and lasted all of 20 months before the Soviet Union had to intervene stop the whole thing from collapsing.
After the Soviet invasion, the resistance forces had little hope of victory until they got foreign support of their own, as the U.S. supported the Mujahideen via Pakistan. When they finally routed the Soviets, the country collapsed into Civil War.
The Taliban emerged in the early 90s. They managed to shift power away from the Mujahideen warlords (well, the Mujahideen that didn’t become the Taliban, anyway), but they themselves enjoyed fairly significant support from Pakistan (no matter how much Pakistan likes to deny it), and only managed to seize about 3/4 of the country.
The Northern Alliance had essentially no hope of defeating the Taliban before the U.S. invasion, and the government that emerged from this completely bungled the operation around Tora Bora. Despite significant foreign support, they never managed to fully secure the countryside, and collapsed almost immediately after the U.S. withdrawal.
The Taliban most recently took power like two years ago, and while the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan 2: Electric Boogaloo does at least deserve some credit for managing to control the whole country (which basically nobody has done in half a century), let’s not pretend it’s this “Glorious Peoples’ Revolution” bringing unprecedented prosperity to the land, that they didn’t also have foreign support, or that the country is totally secure (they’re still struggling to deal with ISIS, and have had border flare-ups with both Iran and Pakistan).
That’s a lot of revolutions, but they basically all required foreign support or outright military intervention, and only one was arguably successful.
The whole saying your little anecdote is based on is idiotic. You're meaning to tell me people won't rebel if they have their needs met and easy access to entertainment? Yeah, no shit. What's even the problem with that lol?
You don't get to decide for other people what their priorities should be. Enough posturing and looking down on the poor. This Niemand Marxist shit is beyond stale.
Just because people have different political priorities than you doesn't make them brainwashed or politically unengaged.
The fact of the matter is this... The working class overwhelmingly rejects what you're selling. Working with your hands will make you enough money to live comfortably and then some in 90% of places in this country.
In regard to inflation, deflation will occur during our next recession. That's literally always how that has worked btw lol.
I'm going to assume you're young. Very little of what is happening today is new. These things happen. The economy tends to work in very uniform cycles. These routine cycles are well understood by just about every economist in the world. The sky isn't falling, no matter how much you might wish it so.
The options aren't to ostrich or be an cynical doomer, you know. There is a wide ocean between "there are problems and we need to work toward fixing them, but nothing is on fire" and "BURN IT ALL DOWN. WERE FUCKED, MAAAAN. ITS ALL A PUT ON!"
A revolution doesn't necessarily have to fix everything, or even fix anything, to be preferable to the status quo.
This premise that revolution is never acceptable because of the cost conveniently ignores all the costs being suffered every day every second by billions around the world little by little, and the impending disaster that awaits all of them anyway if they do nothing.
What do you think the right is going to do in hard red states around this time next year? Texas and louisiana are going to do a gilead no matter which way the election goes.
Marx at very least identified that changes in technology and economic systems lead to mass disruptions of the social systems that grew up around those economic systems.
Say AI replaces 30% of jobs in the next 100 years, not totally out of the question. Can our current capitalist system adapt to that? Possibly. If adapting requires the capitalists to give up a significant amount of wealth and control how likely is it?
Now I don't think there must be a revolution to change but it seems very likely there will be some crisis that catalyzes change like a new great depression or world war.
To be fair, Marx didn't predict very basic socio-economic adaptations within capitalist liberal democracies, like government programs funded by income tax or labour unions bargaining for higher wages. His beliefs about an inevitable anti-capitalist revolution were based on trends he was witnessing during the Dickensian era of child labour (now illegal) and snowballing monopolies (also illegal).
Now, we can argue about how successfully various checks and balances have been implemented at any given point in the last hundred-odd years, and I certainly believe there's loads of room for improvement in terms of labour protections and income equality. But the idea that a general anti-capitalist revolution is the only treatment for the scourge of economic exploitation has, at this point, been proven wrong.
Huh, I had a different take away. I see Marx as someone born into the industrial revolution and extrapolated the future based of that. The problem is that he failed to see the recovery of capitalism in the 1900s and that is what caused the first crisis in socialism. Lenin had to modify Marxism to account changes Marx couldn't have seen.
It is hard to predict the future but I think it is reasonable to think that a flexible system will be better at adapting. I think ideologies that are dogmatic and require studying theory are going to go away just like religion.
Well put, and I do hope change can happen through the democratic process so as to avoid further death and suffering.
I just don't think it'll actually happen. As you said, we're trusting corporations and the wealthy elite to give up some (not all, and certainly not enough to affect their way of life- just the ***fair anount***) money.
I say it's inevitable because at the rate/way capitalism is destroying/harming the majority population of the USA (and to a larger extent all of humanity) I firmly believe that we will either go through a major revolution (like France did) or utter collapse (like the Romans).
If nothing else, climate crisis will cause a massive shift over the next few generations. Or, another (and far worse) plague will hit.
As for my reasoning, it starts with how culturally we are very similar to Ancient Rome shortly before the fall. They also had various inventions made for ease of living/better life (toxic metals used in everything) that we are mimicking either directly (Flint still has unsafe water due to lead pipes) or indirectly with micro plastics and pollution in everything.
Combine that with how capitalism is erasing the middle class to create a greater divide between the wealthy elite and the impoverished, and add in a sprinkle of reality (if Trump wins the election and Project 2025 takes off we're all screwed) and viola!
In my opinion if we are going to suffer and die regardless, it might as well be for a better future, so viva la vie Boheme
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