Cowbee

The reason the GOP won is because the DNC ran to the right in a country where the working class is increasingly radicalized. The largest block of society outright doesn't vote because they don't see a material difference in the outcome of the election, or because voting in their state doesn't matter as its solidly red or blue to begin with. Both parties support the bourgeoisie. Even if the DNC won, we would still be in the same mess, because the problems with our system is that it's a dying capitalist empire.

The only one supporting horshoe theory is you, as you blame Marxists for the problems caused by both parties in a dying capitalist empire.

This is a very myopic, eurocentric point of view. Capitalism in the global north is sustained by imperialism. The global south, and its suffering, is what keeps prices artificially low in the global north. This system is crumbling, and disparity is rising faster than ever in the global north as a consequence. Countries like Burkina Faso are kicking out occupiers like France, and BRICS is gaining as the west is falling in relevance.

Further, the UK did not go socialist, unless I'm misreading your meaning. Socialism, as it exists in the real world, can be found in countries like the PRC, Cuba, and former USSR. I'm not talking about welfare.

Further, the US is seeing normalization of socialism. Mamdani may be a socdem, but has implied a far more socialist line, ie collectivizing production. The assassination of the United Healthcare CEO is being met with united support among the working class parties like the Party for Socialism and Liberation are reporting record member growth.

Opinions aren't what drive social change, material conditions evolving and changing do. The material conditions of capitalism in the west are declining, and socialism is gaining. The global south is increasingly throwing off the shackles of imperialism. If you take a very myopic, eurocentric view, then it can be easy to only see companies getting larger and larger and disparity rising, but if you zoom out this very system is pushing the profit motive and capitalism with it to the brink.

Modes of production are historical phenomena, guided by technological advancements. Capitalism wasn't a choice, but a result of growing industrial bourgeois production resolving its contradiction with feudal agrarian production. The steam engine is what accelerated this process. Zooming out, capital is the real master of capitalists, capitalists are merely the high priests of capital best guessing at what it wants, but ultimately are slaves to the profit motive and how to best extract it.

And no worries! One thing that's helpful, is that the centralization of capitalism over time is exactly what creates a large class capable of collectively planning and running production in the interests of all. The profit motive destroys the profit motive. I try to maintain revolutionary optimism, doomerism is more of a product of the capitalist class trying to remove revolutionary fervor.

Based on your final paragraph, you'd do well with reading leftist theory! I already said I'm a Marxist-Leninist, I actually made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list if you want to spend some time on theory, but you can explore whatever leftist tendencies you want to. The two biggest umbrellas are anarchism and Marxism, the former being about decentralization and horizontalism, the latter being about centralization and collectivization (to massively oversimplify), and the biggest tendency in Marxism is Marxism-Leninism. If you want to learn more about what makes these distinct, feel free to ask, I used to be an anarchist myself.

Also, if you can, join an org! If you're US-based, I recommend something like The Party for Socialism and Liberation. There are probably other orgs local to you, though, so do some shopping around. Getting organized is the only way out of this mess, and into the new. A better world is possible!

The capitalists have always had control of governments within capitalism. States are not distinct from the ruling class, but an extension. What we are seeing is not a shift from capitalism to neofeudalism, but the consequences of the dying stages of capitalism before socialism. Capitalism has decayed and is dying due to monopolization and centralization of capital, and due to imperialism, but these same conditions prep capitalism for revolution and collective ownership and planning, into socialism.

New York Times, reporting on Kiev using cluster bombs in the Donbass region in 2014

According to wikipedia, the vast majority of the donbass region voted for independence from Ukraine.

Wikipedia article, going over the Euromaidan coup from a pro-western perspective

Vice news, 9 years ago, in the Donetsk People's Republic

All of these are pro-Western sources that do a better job of acknowledging the reality of the situation better than you do. You seem to not only only accept pro-western news, but exclusively pro-western news that goes against the western consensus on the Donbass Region.

Incredible, lmao.

Eastern Ukraine, the Donbass region, is very pro-Russia and very anti-Ukraine. Western Ukraine was shelling them for a decade, post-2014 coup, due to the hard shift from being aligned with Russia to being aligned with NATO. For these citizens, Russian presence is a good thing. Western Ukraine certainly hates that Russia has invaded, but the "hysteria" I am referring to is the kind that thinks even Eastern Ukraine opposes the Russian Federation.

So no, this isn't a "pro-Russian" stance, in my opinion. Recognizing western-Ukraine's shelling of civilians in eastern-ukraine for a decade, and the overwhelming support for Russian annexation of the Donbass region among Donbass residents in Donetsk and Luhansk, is something that even pro-NATO people need to recognize in order to figure out how to best deal with that underlying fact.

Being anti-NATO and not falling for the current hysteria that overplays the negative aspects of the RF and underplays the negative aspects of NATO-aligned countries is being "pro-Russian?" I'm far more willing to say I'm pro-PRC, or pro-Cuba, than I would be to say I'm pro-Russian, but I do understand that a lot of countries I support, like Burkina Faso, do rely quite a bit on the RF, and if the RF fell, the west would have a much stronger position in terrorizing the global south.

Can you elaborate? I'm certainly very pro-Soviet, as I'm a communist. I don't hide that. I'm pro-communism, I support the PRC, Cuba, AES in general. The main purpose of my Lemmy.ml account is to talk about socialism and communism through a Marxist-Leninist lens.

The simplest way to pitch socialism, in my opinion, is that under a system where private property governs the large firms and key industries (ie, capitalism), eventually you reach a point where even the initially progressive elements of markets turn into monopoly, mass disparity, and even imperialism in the case of the global north, who outsources the greatest suffering of the system to the global south.

The only remedy, is to get to a system where public ownership of the large firms and key industries is principle, ie socialism. It's better for the industry built up under capitalism to be collectivized and planned to suit our needs. Central planning is remarkably effective, even more so over the large industries once markets have "figured out" optimal methods of planning internally.

How do we get there? Revolution. How can we feasibly have a revolution against the largest millitary in the world? Worker organizing, engaging in party building, and building up unified democratic networks of working class people. Imperialism weakens over time, and as a consequence, so too does the state, allowing the working class party to take decisive action at times of crisis. We have to build that now, because we can't predict when that crisis will arrive, just that it becomes more likely the further weakened the system gets.

Why can't we reform the system? Because the state will always side with whichever aspect of the economy is principle. This is the class nature of the state, you cannot simply ask Musk to hand over SpaceX and Tesla, nor Bezos Amazon. The working class needs to smash the former state, and replace it with a working class one.

Those are the bare basics, the reading list I linked in my other reply is for if you want to learn more about these concepts, their underlying evidence, and dive deeper into the reasoning behind them.

I'm a Marxist, sure, very openly so. I don't really think anyone cares about who you've sniffed out to be a commie or not, especially considering I have it plastered all over my profile and frequently outright state it. I wouldn't say "pro-Russian," either, the Russian Federation is deeply flawed and has tragically fallen from their far more progressive Soviet heritage.

I'm very anti-NATO, like the vast majority of Marxists, and I don't fall for the hysteria around the Russian Federation as some ultimate evil, though, so if that's all it takes to be "pro-Russian" for you then that's funny.

Gotcha, I'll be sure to only repeat word for word what's in the post. No new angles, no new ways of looking at the post content, just a single 👏 emoji.