this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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Nice idea but it's very telling that there is no mention at all of how to make this come about. The more I learn about Marx, the more he seems like Jacque Fresco and his Venus Project, just a "wouldn't it be nice if" pie-in-the-sky idea.
Sorry, your argument is outdated by around 200 years. Engels already did an essay on the difference between scientific socialism and utopian socialism, because it was a common critique back then. It's called, well, "Socialism: scientific and utopian", and explains how Marxism isn't a utopian pipedream but rather a systematic way of analysing the economy and the social relations and historical events, reacting to them, and fighting for the rights of the workers above all else. Among other things, it allowed the Russian Revolution to triumph, and it allowed the Soviets to predict the second world war 10 years before it happened (which allowed the USSR to place most of its heavy industry east of the Urals, and in turn saved the country from losing against the Nazi invasion).
I haven't made an argument, I made a personal observation.
I don't understand any of this.
My point is that there were already conservatives 200 years ago claiming that socialism was utopian, and people like Marx and Engels proved them wrong. Lenin and Fidel, and all the workers who followed and guided them, adhering to Marxism-Leninism, successfully organized revolutions that abolished capitalism and Tsarism and turned their countries into socialist ones.
So your comment that it seems "utopian" has already been answered by Engels 150+ years ago, and confirmed wrong by Lenin and Fidel.
I didn't claim that socialism was utopian, I pointed out that there is seemingly no proposal for how to make socialism come about, much like The Venus Project.
I haven't used the word utopian. You're putting words in my mouth. You're so blinded by your expectations about what you think people are going to say about socialism that you literally can't read what people are writing. Sort your shit out please.
How's that not basically the definition of utopia?
There pretty much is: create a vanguard party of Marxist intellectuals, create unions and give services to citizens in order to organise them, help them in their lives and their struggle, and educate them into class-consciousness. This makes a grassroots dual-power structure that makes workers class-conscious and politically involved as well as provides them with safety networks that they themselves maintain. When the material conditions for the revolution eventually come, the vanguard party and the grassroots organizations coalesce and take power from the bourgeoisie
LOL it's not because that's how concepts work.
What revolution?
What's the Marxist plan for preventing the people who take power from becoming the new exploiters? How do Marxists propose to overcome the fact that power corrupts?
You can tell that to yourself, it's the core of what you meant, regardless of whether you want to use the specific word "utopia" or just talk about "ideal societies that won't take place". I'm not here to argue semantics.
Whichever comes. Revolutions take place periodically in different countries. French revolution, October revolution, revolutionary struggles against colonialism... All of those were revolutions, i.e. events in history with rapid radical changes in the form of governance and organisation of a system, possibly with a change in the classes of society.
The solution is being as democratic as possible. Establishing grassroots, dual power structures early and way before the revolutions. Strong unions, neighborhood associations, social rights movements like current feminist organizations... All of those linked and in collaboration with each other and with a vanguard party of Marxist intellectuals who guide these collectives and vice-versa.
That's not what I meant though. You can't even listen when someone tells you you're not listening.
LOL so no solution in fact, just hope that things might turn out better. Selling a better future. Like a religion. It all makes sense now. Best of luck.
Not if you choose to ignore everything else I said after that. But that's just you wanting to argue in bad faith
Nothing you said after that prevents corruption. You haven't offered a solution, you've just offered a hope.
That's just, like, your opinion, dude. Anarcho-syndicalism doesn't logically eliminate corruption either, no system does
Exactly. Socialism brings no solution to the table. To think, all this time Marx was just faffing about the difference between being stabbed with a six inch knife and a twelve inch knife. What a palaver.
Marx's point wasn't the complete elimination of corruption, but the elimination of the exploitation of the working class by the owning class. This has historically happened in several countries and can (and will) happen again.
But not the elimination of exploitation. In which case: meh.
There's no surplus labour extraction, hence no exploitation
LOL you're deluded. What does it mean for there to be corruption without exploitation? Corruption is a form of exploitation.
Corruption isn't systematic, it's an isolated and illegal activity, unlike extraction of surplus value in capitalism which is legal and encouraged and systematic. The extent of corruption is orders of magnitude below capitalist exploitation.
LOL
I see.
Well, good luck.
Dude, you're deluded if you think capitalist exploitation is even close to corruption in communism. There was no Bezos and no Elon in the USSR. There were no yatchs and hookers. There were no homeless workers, or workers without access to healthcare. The inequality was extremely low compared to Capitalism, even comparing workers with your dreaded "bureaucracy". The fact that you'd even compare the both just shows how stupidly uneducated you are in this.
O_o
I'm not going to waste my time learning about a field that brings no solution to the table.
Six inch knife vs twelve inch knife yawn
Big quantitative differences turn into qualitative differences. But thank you for finally admitting you're talking out of your ass
LOL
Fun fact: The expression pie-in-the-sky originates in an American socialist song. It's quite catchy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Preacher_and_the_Slave
A curious diversion but doesn't really contribute to the issue at hand.
Revolution, which is an inevitability as Capitalism and by extension Imperialism continues to decay and disparity continues to rise. Marxists advocate for building dual-power so that when this revolution does occur, the former state can be replaced with democratic councils and unions that already exist.
What makes you say that?
Competition and improvements in production result in increasingly lowered rates of profit, which are countered by higher exploitation. Wages have largely stagnated with respect to productivity while disparity rises.
I don't follow.
You might want to read Wage Labor and Capital then.
I don't want to read that.
Then what, specifically, are you having trouble with understanding?
What you're talking about.
The Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall.
The Price of Tea in China.
It's clear you don't actually care.
I don't care about drivel, no.
Gotcha, then why continue to refuse to read anything but still try to engage?
I'm not trying.