this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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What, exactly, is insufferable about me asking you what your plan is when you come attacking me of your own volition? It wasn't like I reached out to you, you whined and left when you couldn't articulate a point yet I could and did.
Your 'plan' is not a plan so much as a general set of vague guidelines. My 'plan', with the same degree of validity, is to (continue to) support my local community, work towards conversions to better voting systems, and try to weather the next four years while continuing to take a pragmatist's stance on political candidates.
What I find insufferable about you and the majority of the vocal folk who share your views are that you don't seem interested in actually having a conversation about your views. You're all quite ready to put words in other peoples' mouths and adopt a holier-than-thou attitude towards everyone, while not considering that many of us might share a lot of your views if you weren't so damn militant about everything. We probably have quite a lot in common, but painting everyone who isn't a marxist as a capitalist / fascist isn't helping your cause, not in the slightest.
This will be the last thing I say here, so feel free to get your last word in.
My plan is a plan, revolution has clear requirements and work do be done, organizations to be built and class awareness to be raised. I don't know what you mean by that as "guidelines."
Secondly, "supporting your community," while noble, is vague and shapeless. What does that look like? How do you work towards better voting systems, and how do you know they are sufficient to bring about change? Is this a situation where you just think really hard about something and hope it magically manifests, or is this a real, practical plan? These questions should all be able to be answered by you in a heartbeat, and if not, your plan does not have the same degree of validity. I encourage you to poke and prod at what I espouse. I also take what I believe to be a pragmatist's approach - after all, I believe what you advocate thus far is far too difficult to accomplish and far too little to accomplish much even if it did come to pass.
Thirdly, you claim I am not willing to have a conversation about my views. Since when? You can check my comment history, it is filled with meaningful conversation regarding the myriad nuances, complexities, difficulties, and strengths of Marxism. When were you willing to have a discussion? You opened a conversation where I said the Democrats failed to garner support with condemnation of my personal character, and refused to acknowledge my points on the necessity of working towards a practical solution rather than hoping the Democrats can win. Evidently, that still remains your tactic, because you only said "voting reform" is necessary.
I never once painted you as a Capitalist, you're likely a proletarian like most of us. I never once called you a fascist, either.
I do believe that if you took the advice I gave in the beginning, you'd likely agree with my reading list, and even become a Communist by the end of it. What I don't believe is that you're in a mindset to take that advice, nor do I believe you ever have been in this conversation. You opened it with personal attacks when I tried to direct the conversation towards practical actions, and I think that's because taking action scares you.
I hope you'll read theory, I do think you'd agree with it if you would be willing to do so, but I don't think you are, yet. If, on the off-chance you do decide, I'm open to answer any questions you might have. I don't know everything about Marxism, not by a long-shot, but I'm very confident in what I do talk about because I refrain from talking about what I don't know.
I said I wasn't going to reply again, and I'm going to mostly stick to that, but I do want to issue a self-correction for one thing.
I was reading this thread on an app that doesn't do a good job of differentiating different posters, and I was replying to a few different people and (incorrectly) attributing some of the more inflammatory things I was reading to you. Now that I'm looking at it on a PC, I can see that it was actually multiple people, so I apologize for that. Of the people I was replying to, you were the least objectionable, but we still have fundamental differences of opinion that we will not be able to resolve here.
I appreciate your apology, it does explain quite a few of what I percieved as erratic and irrational antagonisms. I will state that had you not come in, intentionally or not, by directly assaulting my character, I would have generally been far more charitable.
I know you said you don't wish to reply, and if not that's fine and I understand. However, given that we have clarified that the hostility in this conversation was based on a fundamental misunderstanding in tone and intent, why not talk about our ideas, like you said you wanted? We can start fresh.
What about our difference in opinion is so fundamental that we can't come to some level of agreement? Again, I'll state that, regardless of the actions of individual voters, whether or not these voters are mobilized in general depends most heavily on the campaigns run by the two parties. The changes in the 2024 Harris Campaign compared to the successful Biden 2020 campaign can at least be considered a large determining factor in the changes in voting sway, no?
Secondly, I do think it's important to analyze if voting reform would actually meaningfully change society, and if it's even feasible to achieve without revolution in the first place. Marxists have very good reasons to be revolutionary exclusively.
The only circumstance under which I would support a revolution is if the government simply ceases to function (which it may, now, under Trump - who knows? But I don't wish to bank on that possibility, nor do I wish to cause a non-functioning government simply to justify a revolution; that's no better than Republicans grinding everything to a standstill then claiming that their ability to do so is evidence that the government isn't working.) The pragmatic stance is to vote for the better of the candidates who can reasonably win elections while directing effort towards changing the reasons why we only have two candidates to choose from.
Revolution that isn't supported by the majority of people is simply imposing a viewpoint on people who do not want it, and even if it would ultimately be better for them in the long run, it's no better than Christian Nationalists trying to impose their viewpoint on everyone else.
If it is supported by the majority of people, it should be able to be resolved via the democratic process. What's stopping that right now is the two-party system that we're stuck in, and that can't be resolved without voting reform, so that's where I'm choosing to direct my efforts. It's not that it will single-handedly change society, but it's the first step in a process that will, theoretically, allow new, more progressive and left-leaning parties to rise to relevance.
There have been multiple states that have had ranked-choice voting on their ballots (including mine), but they largely haven't passed, so I would argue that yes, it is feasible to achieve it without revolution, but thus far it seems that people don't understand why it's needed (and therefore it's a matter of getting the word out and raising awareness), or they simply disagree with it and want to maintain the status quo (and if that's honestly the majority opinion, and it's not just a perception or information problem, then so be it - that just means that we're in a minority and we shouldn't be forcing the majority to bend to our viewpoint any more than they should be forcing us to bend to theirs.).
Look, I think we agree on a lot of things. I support many socialist views; capitalism is an awful system, corporate greed and income inequality and money in politics are some of the biggest problems with society and some of the biggest inhibitors to change. However, I don't think communism is a viable solution. In my opinion, the ideal solution would still allow accumulation of personal wealth, but would distribute wealth based on how much good a person has brought to society, rather than on how much of a sociopath they're willing to be to get it. I believe most people are greedy and I believe most people are motivated by personal gain moreso than anything else. Not everyone, obviously, but most people, and I think the only way we're going to get people to abandon the 'Fuck you, got mine' attitude is by rewarding behaviors we want to reinforce, which capitalism obviously does not do.
If we take your "revolution should only be supported if the government ceases to function" stance to its logical conclusion, that means you are against the American, French, Vietnamese, Cuban, Russian, and Chinese revolutions, right? Even if previous conditions were misery, because the government still functioned, they should have stuck with it? I don't agree that the pragmatic stance is to continue voting democrat, because disparity is rising and Capitalism is crumbling. Democrats will not support policies that could endanger their own power, and that extends to Capitalists. I think you confuse "pragmatic" for "easy."
Secondly, Marxists are revolutionary, not Blanquist. Revolution requires the support of the masses. Secondly, this revolutionary shift in power cannot be held at the ballot box, because the Capitalist State supports the bourgeoisie. The only candidates you can vote for and the only parties allowed anywhere near power are the ones that serve purely the interests of Capital. That's why not only is voting reform extremely difficult to get, but also would not change the necessity of revolution.
Thirdly, on your analysis of why voting reform like RCV is not more widespread, it isn't because it isn't popular. RCV is a carrot on a string, too small in scale to ever impact anything, but just close enough that you have hope for it. Even insidiously, achieving RCV nationwide still won't stop the inevitable crumbling of Capitalism! Many other nations have RCV and yet still have nothing but right-wing establishment parties in power, because RCV fundamentally doesn't enact change, it just sounds like it could.
Fourth, you make no mention of how or why you believe Communism to be "unviable," yet fully back a system where distribution is based on arbitrary "goodness" in society. Communists argue for practical, labor-time based economic planning that can be calculated, tracked, measured, and adjusted using real world technology, and moreso argue for doing so only in areas of industry that have already advanced to monopolist syndicates and can thus be centrally planned after being publicly owned. Where is this "goodness" you speak of calculated? By what measure?
Fifth, Humans are not inherently greedy, nor would that be a problem for Socialism and Communism in the first place. Rather, human ideas are shaped by their material conditions and their definite social relations, Capitalism highlights greed and rewards it more. The Base reinforces the Superstructure, ie the Mode of Production reinforces and projects the laws, culture, and values of society, which in turn reinforces the base, slightly changing each other over time as society develops and progresses. Humans will not appear so greedy in a publicly owned economy.
Ultimately, all of your criticisms of Communism are incredibly common for those who have not read theory, as all of the ones you raised specifically were already answered over a hundred years ago. More questions have been raised since then, of course, but I think you would gain a ton from reading the theory list I made, some highlights that directly answer your questions are:
Reform or Revolution
Wage Labor and Capital and Wages, Price and Profit
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
The Principles of Communism
The State and Revolution
And as an added measure that isn't in my reading list, Prices in a Planned Economy for more information on what Marxists advocate for with respect to how to economically plan.
I think it's almost amazing how you were able to touch on many different common areas that have been thoroughly answered by Marxists over the years quite definitively, and I mean no offense by that. I really do recommend you give it a try.