Infighting
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Either you're trying to say Marxism-Leninism isn't Marxist, in which case some heavy justification is required, or I misunderstood your point, in which case I'd appreciate elaboration.
my claim was not about marxism or marxist-leninism, but specifically its adherents.
i dont think that marxism inherently glorifies state-capitalism or imperialism, but i recognize that an uncomfortably large portion of its adherents do.as to ur explanation of chinas economic system..
it seems that u define socialism as public ownership of industry/means of production, and capitalism as private ownership of these.
i would argue that public ownership should refer to the public i.e. the populace of the area, not the state that claims to represent them, yet according to u is disapproved of by 10% of its people.
and when the state owns all/most of the firms, and the workers/proletariat does not own them, this is another form of capitalism: one where the state owns the means of production. therefore, state capitalism.
id recommend this video series that tries to explain the state and its function in different historical contexts:
part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTwxpTyGUOIits also available in text format if u prefer reading:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anark-the-state-is-counter-revolutionarywrote last edited by [email protected]Regarding Marxists and imperialism/state capitalism, I suppose I just disagree with you there, either we are using different definitions of imperialism just like we are using different definitions of socialism and state capitalism, or you're seeing something I don't.
As for me, and socialism vs capitalism, socialism is essentially a mode of production by which collectivized ownership forms the principle aspect of society, ie the base. In practical terms, that means the large firms and key industries, which have control over the rest of the economy (controlling the rubber factory means you have power over the rubber ball factory, as an example). Capitalism is the reverse, privatized ownership of the large firms and key industries, and thus bourgeois control.
Returning to the state, the state is an extension of the ruling class, not a class in and of itself. This is principly the Marxist stance, here. The reason state ownership in a principly publicly owned economy is socialist, is because that necessitates proletarian control. If the bourgeoisie only control the medium firms, and only to the extent that they cannot work against the common, collective plan, then they have no political power, the proletariat does. The small firms are largely cooperative or petite bourgeois property in the PRC, meaning the bourgeoisie proper really only has the non-essential, smaller-scale industry. As a side note, 10% is actually higher than the disapproval rate. Disapproval is highest at the township level, but gets higher the more central you get, with only 4.3% disapproving at the top level:
State ownership is not juxtaposed with proletarian ownership, if the proletariat actually directly owned and controlled the tools they used, they would not be proletarian, but petty bourgeois. Cooperative ownership, in small-scale firms, is petty bourgeois ownership. This isn't intrinsically an issue in a broader socialist economy, but without collectivized ownership you cement class divisions, ie each cooperative is its own competing cell, rather than existing in the context of a collectivized economy run by all in the interests of all.
Capitalism, on the other hand, relies on the M-C...P...C'-M' circuit of reproduction. State-run industries don't have to adhere to this, they don't need to run a profit and they don't need to compete in a market, but in capitalism, this is the dominant mode of production over the largest and key firms and industries. The difference between how the US, for example, and PRC functions is dramatic, and its why the PRC has such large approval rates.
As for the state, Marxists and anarchists have different views. Marxists see the state as an instrument of class oppression that exists as long as class does, and so in order to get rid of it, all property needs to be gradually sublimated into collectivized property, across all of society. The principle difference is between centralization and collectivization vs decentralization and horizontalism.
I appreciate the link, but as a former anarchist myself I'm already familiar with the anarchist perspective. I'm not trying to debate anarchism, or try to explain why I agree more with Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, just defend Marxism from what I recognize as misrepresentations of it. Anark's central premise seems to be that the state creates classes, which fundamentally relies on either a different definition of class at best or a misunderstanding of the state and class at worst.
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The only thing that matters is policy, I'll work with anyone as long as it's toward an egalitarian society with wealth redistribution.
Labels are nice for classifying, but not for executing. I don't care if you identify as leftist, or liberal, or progressive; I care if you support good policies.
hear, hear
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It does help that the overarching theme of the right is centered around taking as much for yourself as possible and not caring about the collateral damage. The right is full of single-issue voters who might, say, not actually explicitly hate gay people but who also don’t give a shit about their rights and safety if it means they can keep their guns. The left, almost definitionally, needs to consider the complexity inherent in not being able to ignore the effects that any given policy might have on others and this means that there is so much more opportunity for conflict.
You’re correct, of course, I’m just pointing out the difference such that it might help attack the issue from a better perspective.
There's the nuance the original post relies on ignoring. But it's supposed to be a humorous joke-post anyway.
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It's the factory preset look for these pseudo-tankies that show up in my local activism group every now and then.
Always the big earring, unkempt beard, this specific shape of glasses, and the cheap aliexpress t-shirt with a political message on it.
Not my fault Vaush stole the look!
wrote last edited by [email protected]pseudo-tankies
I'm not even sure whether this is supposed to be an insult anymore. Is a "tankie" better or worse than a "fake tankie"?
In a thread complaining about leftist infighting, there's a special irony in liberals singing out a leftist who is simultaneously too far left and not far left enough.
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The only thing that matters is policy, I'll work with anyone as long as it's toward an egalitarian society with wealth redistribution.
Labels are nice for classifying, but not for executing. I don't care if you identify as leftist, or liberal, or progressive; I care if you support good policies.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I’ll work with anyone as long as it’s toward an egalitarian society with wealth redistribution.
Okay, but here me out? What if we just privatize the mechanism of wealth redistribution? Also we're going to be spending a bunch of money on foreign wars, but don't worry - this time the people were fighting are ontologically evil, we promise. Yes, we will have to make deep cuts to social services in order to pay for the war (while still running enormous deficits because haha, psych, deficits don't matter), but it will be vital to get the Moderate Conservative on board with our program.
Also, we control every branch of government, but we still need to compromise with fascists in the opposition.
Okay, why are you leaving? You're clearly not serious about progressive reforms.
And STOP SAYING NICE THINGS AND CHINA! This is a red line we will not tolerate!
You know what? You're not serious. We're forming a coalition with Liz Cheney. See you in the losers bracket next year.
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You're the reason we lost control of the government.
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Okay, now stop voting for a popular leftist mayor, or we'll burn this whole party down.
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I'm saying it because I've seen them make the same argument, as I have done myself, in different ways.
Their argument is that I'm not anti authoritarian. Afaict you're not making that argument. I'm not interested in fighting about what is or isn't a true Scotsman. This devolves quickly into if you believe in the government having any power, that's an endorsement of authoritarianism and now no one can be anti authoritarian if they believe in any kind of enforceable law.
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How about I talk about every time Marxist-Leninists betrayed other leftists and executed them? It's an extensive fucking list.
Also, just look it up. You will find examples of what I said within minutes. But if you wanna be lazy, go ahead.
You're just an astroturf. You are what's a stop to any temporary left unity, not those who you accuse with ridiculous strawmen.
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Their argument is that I'm not anti authoritarian. Afaict you're not making that argument. I'm not interested in fighting about what is or isn't a true Scotsman. This devolves quickly into if you believe in the government having any power, that's an endorsement of authoritarianism and now no one can be anti authoritarian if they believe in any kind of enforceable law.
My point is that being "anti-authoritarian" is meaningless unless you qualify that with how you wish to get rid of the state and class, as until you do, there will always be one class in control of the state that oppresses the rest. "Authoritarianism" as a thing does not exist, what exists is differences in how much a state exerts its authority, and that depends on which class is in control and which circumstances it is responding to.
As an example, both Nazi Germany and modern Germany are capitalist, bourgeois states. Modern Germany doesn't need to exert its authority as much as Nazi Germany because the Nazis came to power in economic crisis, where private ownership itself was in danger. Modern Germany is just as willing to use its authority as it has the same class character, but only does so to the extent it needs to, like crushing protestors for Palestine.
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Regarding Marxists and imperialism/state capitalism, I suppose I just disagree with you there, either we are using different definitions of imperialism just like we are using different definitions of socialism and state capitalism, or you're seeing something I don't.
As for me, and socialism vs capitalism, socialism is essentially a mode of production by which collectivized ownership forms the principle aspect of society, ie the base. In practical terms, that means the large firms and key industries, which have control over the rest of the economy (controlling the rubber factory means you have power over the rubber ball factory, as an example). Capitalism is the reverse, privatized ownership of the large firms and key industries, and thus bourgeois control.
Returning to the state, the state is an extension of the ruling class, not a class in and of itself. This is principly the Marxist stance, here. The reason state ownership in a principly publicly owned economy is socialist, is because that necessitates proletarian control. If the bourgeoisie only control the medium firms, and only to the extent that they cannot work against the common, collective plan, then they have no political power, the proletariat does. The small firms are largely cooperative or petite bourgeois property in the PRC, meaning the bourgeoisie proper really only has the non-essential, smaller-scale industry. As a side note, 10% is actually higher than the disapproval rate. Disapproval is highest at the township level, but gets higher the more central you get, with only 4.3% disapproving at the top level:
State ownership is not juxtaposed with proletarian ownership, if the proletariat actually directly owned and controlled the tools they used, they would not be proletarian, but petty bourgeois. Cooperative ownership, in small-scale firms, is petty bourgeois ownership. This isn't intrinsically an issue in a broader socialist economy, but without collectivized ownership you cement class divisions, ie each cooperative is its own competing cell, rather than existing in the context of a collectivized economy run by all in the interests of all.
Capitalism, on the other hand, relies on the M-C...P...C'-M' circuit of reproduction. State-run industries don't have to adhere to this, they don't need to run a profit and they don't need to compete in a market, but in capitalism, this is the dominant mode of production over the largest and key firms and industries. The difference between how the US, for example, and PRC functions is dramatic, and its why the PRC has such large approval rates.
As for the state, Marxists and anarchists have different views. Marxists see the state as an instrument of class oppression that exists as long as class does, and so in order to get rid of it, all property needs to be gradually sublimated into collectivized property, across all of society. The principle difference is between centralization and collectivization vs decentralization and horizontalism.
I appreciate the link, but as a former anarchist myself I'm already familiar with the anarchist perspective. I'm not trying to debate anarchism, or try to explain why I agree more with Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, just defend Marxism from what I recognize as misrepresentations of it. Anark's central premise seems to be that the state creates classes, which fundamentally relies on either a different definition of class at best or a misunderstanding of the state and class at worst.
wrote last edited by [email protected]it does seem that we have very different understandings of the state.
in my mind, a disapproval rating larger than 0% already shows that the state =/= its people and the people do not truly control the state.
also, by the people owning industry, i meant all of them, not some subset. this means it doesnt create class distinctions, in fact, even if it was previously owned and controlled by the state (a subset of the people), this would be a reduction of class distinctions in my mind.
i think the crux of our disagreement is that u seem to consider the state as equivalent/"an extension" to the people, while i want to clarify that one may claim to be controlled entirely by the people, but this does not make it so.
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The idea that all "leftists" should just work together is stupid.
Leninism, Anarcho-primitivism and Social democracy (for example) are not different approaches to "leftism" that ultimately want the same things; they are completely separate ideologies that naturally come into conflict. The people who follow them disagree with each other because they want and value completely different things. If they were to put aside their differences there would be nothing left.
That doesn't mean arguing on the internet about ideology is meaningful, or that there can't be common goals or enemies, just that you should give up the idea that all "leftists" are somehow natural allies, because it doesn't make any sense.
Leninism, Anarcho-primitivism and Social democracy (for example) are not different approaches to “leftism” that ultimately want the same things; they are completely separate ideologies that naturally come into conflict.
In a fascist dictatorship, they have a lot more in common than opposition. What's more, there's ample room for compromise when members of these caucuses are able to communicate and collaborate freely.
The biggest hurdle to Left Unity I consistently see is Liberal Wreckers stepping in to insist any one ascendant philosophy is unserious and counterproductive, right before they form a coalition with corporationists and fascists.
you should give up the idea that all “leftists” are somehow natural allies
There's a material basis of alliance that stems from the communities that form the base of each faction.
The idea that a Social Democrat like Lulu or Sheinbaum can't form coalition with Anarcho-Prim native people in the rural Brazilian/Southern Mexican territories is demonstrably untrue.
The idea that a Leninist like Castro or Mandela couldn't lead a popular Socialist revolution in Cuba or South Africa is demonstrably untrue.
The idea that Bookchin-style Eco-socialists can't find allies in Xi's China or among the Maoist factions of North India is demonstrably untrue.
It takes work and it takes the right historical moment, but not everything has to end like the Spanish Civil War. Left Alliance isn't some impossible dream.
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it does seem that we have very different understandings of the state.
in my mind, a disapproval rating larger than 0% already shows that the state =/= its people and the people do not truly control the state.
also, by the people owning industry, i meant all of them, not some subset. this means it doesnt create class distinctions, in fact, even if it was previously owned and controlled by the state (a subset of the people), this would be a reduction of class distinctions in my mind.
i think the crux of our disagreement is that u seem to consider the state as equivalent/"an extension" to the people, while i want to clarify that one may claim to be controlled entirely by the people, but this does not make it so.
Regarding approval rates, all classes were interviewed, including the bourgeoisie. Further, you will not find 100% of people agreeing that the Earth is round, flat-Earthers exist. What should be recognized is that the PRC has some of the highest approval rates in the world, and that that number appears to be increasing over the course of the study. I don't think your argument that there being a non-zero number of Chinese citizens that disapprove of the government doesn't mean the people aren't in charge of it, Chinese citizens aren't a hive-mind nor is the PRC a classless society. Class struggle is very much alive in China.
As for state-ownership, that doesn't mean those in government are the actual owners. That's not how public ownership works, again, the state isn't a class, but an extension, in the PRC's case of the proletariat. Public ownership rests on ownership among all citizens, just because said citizens elect managers and administrators doesn't mean these managers and administrators are the owners. If I am a local manager of a McDonalds store, I'm not the owner, I'm still a proletarian.
I don't consider the state to be equivalent to the people. I do consider the state to be an extension of the ruling class. Further, I see the state the same way Marx did, as purely the repressive elements of government that uphold the ruling class and oppress the other classes, and that once production is all centralized and democratized globally, fully collectivized, there won't be any class and thus no state, but there will be administrators, managers, accountants, etc as there must be in the kind of large-scale and interconnected production that the Marxist conception of communism holds as its basis.
The principle distinction between anarchism and Marxism is in decentralization and horizontalism vs centralization and collectivization. I hold both as socialist, and much prefer the Marxist framework of analysis, but don't really waste much time trying to discredit anarchism or anarchists.
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pseudo-tankies
I'm not even sure whether this is supposed to be an insult anymore. Is a "tankie" better or worse than a "fake tankie"?
In a thread complaining about leftist infighting, there's a special irony in liberals singing out a leftist who is simultaneously too far left and not far left enough.
wrote last edited by [email protected]It's a specific type of leftist we have in my country, french communists are a… special breed, let's say.
In the 1980s our communist party bulldozed a migrant worker dormitory because they hated migrants that much. Red MAGA or something. The party recovered from that era, but french communists are still chauvinistic, xenophobic, and strangely not that much into anti-imperialism (which is meant to be the redeeming quality of tankies). They do however share with tankies the traits of applying "class first" logic to a lot of conversations, which makes them deathly allergic to intersectionality, and being terminally online and way into infighting. Thus they usually end up booted from actual activist groups, since they tend to hold us back and prevent us from actually getting shit done in the streets.
Hence me calling them pseudo-tankies because it's hard to label them. We just call them tankies here: they're members of a party that supported the crushing of the hungarian uprising with soviet tanks, and is ambiguous about tienanmen (no denying it happened but very alt-history about it), so pro-tanks they are.
I have an easier time getting along with the average online american tankie than with our local communist party's members.
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Regarding approval rates, all classes were interviewed, including the bourgeoisie. Further, you will not find 100% of people agreeing that the Earth is round, flat-Earthers exist. What should be recognized is that the PRC has some of the highest approval rates in the world, and that that number appears to be increasing over the course of the study. I don't think your argument that there being a non-zero number of Chinese citizens that disapprove of the government doesn't mean the people aren't in charge of it, Chinese citizens aren't a hive-mind nor is the PRC a classless society. Class struggle is very much alive in China.
As for state-ownership, that doesn't mean those in government are the actual owners. That's not how public ownership works, again, the state isn't a class, but an extension, in the PRC's case of the proletariat. Public ownership rests on ownership among all citizens, just because said citizens elect managers and administrators doesn't mean these managers and administrators are the owners. If I am a local manager of a McDonalds store, I'm not the owner, I'm still a proletarian.
I don't consider the state to be equivalent to the people. I do consider the state to be an extension of the ruling class. Further, I see the state the same way Marx did, as purely the repressive elements of government that uphold the ruling class and oppress the other classes, and that once production is all centralized and democratized globally, fully collectivized, there won't be any class and thus no state, but there will be administrators, managers, accountants, etc as there must be in the kind of large-scale and interconnected production that the Marxist conception of communism holds as its basis.
The principle distinction between anarchism and Marxism is in decentralization and horizontalism vs centralization and collectivization. I hold both as socialist, and much prefer the Marxist framework of analysis, but don't really waste much time trying to discredit anarchism or anarchists.
ok let me try and phrase it another way:
regardless of who supposedly owns the firms, who makes the big decisions of how they are to be run? is it the people of china? or is it whoever is in government at the moment?
who makes decisions about the course of the country? is it the people who live there, or do they simply elect someone to make all of those decisions?
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It's a specific type of leftist we have in my country, french communists are a… special breed, let's say.
In the 1980s our communist party bulldozed a migrant worker dormitory because they hated migrants that much. Red MAGA or something. The party recovered from that era, but french communists are still chauvinistic, xenophobic, and strangely not that much into anti-imperialism (which is meant to be the redeeming quality of tankies). They do however share with tankies the traits of applying "class first" logic to a lot of conversations, which makes them deathly allergic to intersectionality, and being terminally online and way into infighting. Thus they usually end up booted from actual activist groups, since they tend to hold us back and prevent us from actually getting shit done in the streets.
Hence me calling them pseudo-tankies because it's hard to label them. We just call them tankies here: they're members of a party that supported the crushing of the hungarian uprising with soviet tanks, and is ambiguous about tienanmen (no denying it happened but very alt-history about it), so pro-tanks they are.
I have an easier time getting along with the average online american tankie than with our local communist party's members.
I looked it up, and yep, looks like the PCF abandoned Marxism-Leninism in 1979 and adopted Eurocommunism, which is a vulgarization of Marxism that upholds western imperialism. MLs would consider them to be patsocs, same as the American Communist Party which espouses "MAGA Communism."
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ok let me try and phrase it another way:
regardless of who supposedly owns the firms, who makes the big decisions of how they are to be run? is it the people of china? or is it whoever is in government at the moment?
who makes decisions about the course of the country? is it the people who live there, or do they simply elect someone to make all of those decisions?
If your stance is that administration and managers are incompatible with socialism, and that democratically elected representatives are not a genuine form of democracy for the people, then your stance is that Marxism in general isn't socialist to begin with. I think this is more of a semantical argument than a moral or logical one, if I ceded that Marxism isn't socialist by your definition that says nothing about whether or not Marxism is a sound framework and that Marxist "socialism" is something worth pursuing.
Further, I don't see how you could have large-scale society while requiring every decision to be made collectively, so either you're pushing for the small-scale commune model with individual or small cooperative production, or there's something else you agree with that I'm not aware of. Most anarchists recognize "justified" hierarchies of some sort to get around this issue, usually with different models like participatory economics, but I do understand that the maximally horizontalist anarchists do also exist.
As for how decisionmaking is made in the PRC, it depends on the scale. Much of the larger decisions are made centrally at the level of the NPC, but local decisions are often made directly through township councils or regional councils. It works well for its people, which is why it gets such widespread support.
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It's a specific type of leftist we have in my country, french communists are a… special breed, let's say.
In the 1980s our communist party bulldozed a migrant worker dormitory because they hated migrants that much. Red MAGA or something. The party recovered from that era, but french communists are still chauvinistic, xenophobic, and strangely not that much into anti-imperialism (which is meant to be the redeeming quality of tankies). They do however share with tankies the traits of applying "class first" logic to a lot of conversations, which makes them deathly allergic to intersectionality, and being terminally online and way into infighting. Thus they usually end up booted from actual activist groups, since they tend to hold us back and prevent us from actually getting shit done in the streets.
Hence me calling them pseudo-tankies because it's hard to label them. We just call them tankies here: they're members of a party that supported the crushing of the hungarian uprising with soviet tanks, and is ambiguous about tienanmen (no denying it happened but very alt-history about it), so pro-tanks they are.
I have an easier time getting along with the average online american tankie than with our local communist party's members.
wrote last edited by [email protected]The party recovered from that era, but french communists are still chauvinistic, xenophobic, and strangely not that much into anti-imperialism
Yeah, that's been a problem in the US as well, under "Patriotic Communism". But it's also largely artificial - a product of party decay to the point that fascists can sock puppet the leftist labels without actually pursuing leftist policy.
Hence me calling them pseudo-tankies because it’s hard to label them.
One problem that really does plague leftist organizing is state espionage. It has become almost a running joke that half your local DSA meeting is going to be NYPD and FBI informants fighting for front row seats.
But that's also more a legacy of Nixon/Reagan Era COINTELPRO, with the modern state security forces scrambling to invent incidents to thwart from whole cloth.
What I see labeled "Tankie" in the modern moment is anyone championing AES. For some reason, the greatest betrayal of any kind of revolution is... winning? So every socialist politician from Fidel Castro to Hugo Soto-Martínez is doing authoritarian stateism by being inside the halls of power, rather than outside waving a paper placard.
I have an easier time getting along with the average online american tankie than with our local communist party’s members
That's a shame.
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It's not only decades of propaganda.
Whether you like it or not, but many countries have suffered enourmosly (genocides, extermination of local language and culture) under the banner of regimes that claimed to represent communist ideals and allegedly aimed to develop a communist society.
I was born in the tail end of the USSR, so I honestly don't really remember it. But from the stories of my parents and relatives, it was trash.
You can't just dismiss the association between the USSR and attempts at achieving communism.
"claimed" and "allegedly" being the keywords here
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Because the French Revolution didnt permanently damage democracy as a political system.
Ok. Neither did the communist revolutions of the 20th century permanently damage communism as a political system.
And democratic system in one form or another existed for millennia before the French Revolution.
As have anarchist and communistic systems.
The USSR and China under the CCP permanently discredited (without any chance of rehabilitation) communism as legitimate ideology.
No. They didn't. Only too western liberals who were always hostile to communism would say that. The idea that communism is permanently dead just because capitalists didn't like it is pure "end of history" Neo-liberalist nonsense, and basically ignores the fact that a large chunk of the worlds population still actively feels positively about these revolutionary projects; to say nothing of the people who don't like those particular ones, but still agree with communism in general.
Besides, so called "liberal democracies" have done far more evil than the USSR or Communist China. In fact, they're doing a repeat of the Holocaust as we speak. Does that "permanently (without any chance of rehabilitation) discredit democracy as a legitimate ideology"?
No one in their right mind would want anything to do with communism. It’s like asking for genocide, mass killings, gulags, lack of free expression and poverty. No one is going to do that.
Sure, if you're a complete dullard who has mainlined nothing but pure, concentrated cold war propaganda without any thought or consideration, without ever bothering to open a single book on political theory. Everyone else is not that stupid.
And guess what? You have genocide, mass killings, gulags, lack of free expression, and poverty now, no communism needed. In fact, communism has almost always been associated with a reduction in those things if you actually check the stats.
And I not saying this in the polemical sense used by pro-crime/pro-corruption Americans
Yes, you are. That is exactly how you are saying it.
Ok. Neither did the communist revolutions of the 20th century permanently damage communism as a political system.
Watch the news, talk to people, "communism bad" is all they blurt out without thinking.
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The antidote to infighting in my experience is organizing in ideologically diverse spaces. I've organized with liberals and all types of different leftists. It has left me with the perspective that all these people are good people that just want better for the world. It's hard to get angry at them once you know them. Per usual the solution is to touch grass.
Can we smoke weed instead? It's also green.
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Lol. Please present a single example of someone actually holding these views. This is the most obviously nonsense strawman in history, but everyone here will upvote it anyway because it lets them punch left.
One of the Lemmy Devs was saying that being transgender was promoted by the bourgeois
