Welcome again to everybody. Make yourself at home. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
On Sunday last week, Damascus fell to Salafi terrorists and other imperialist-aligned forces. Regardless of the flaws of the ousted government, this is a horrible situation for the Syrian proletariat as well as for the people of Palestine, Lebanon and others. We can only hope for the perseverance of the Syrian workers and the remaining anti-colonial resistance.
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I have a socialist classmate who believes that money doesn't give you power, but ideology does. When I talked about capital he said that capital doesn't equal power either, and that capitalists power can't be just because of capital. He also said another time that HTS didn't win because of capitalist reasons but because of their islamic ideology. I disagree with him, and you?
He's kinda a debate bro type of socialist btw, who doesn't go to demonstrations or is part of a party.
That person doesn't sound like a socialist at all. Marx rejected ideology as false consciousness. Ideology is the polar opposite of materialism.
HTS won because they had the money to bribe generals and Assad didn't have the money to pay them to keep them loyal. If Ideology is more powerful that material concerns why didn't ISIS win the last war? Sunni supremacy was far more acceptable in Syria back then. Anti imperialist ideology is at an all time high in the region.
Not sure what his point is really. Like money, or capital, or possession of something in general, gives you power. Especially in a system that is designed around money, or capital, or possessions.
Also not sure what he means with the HTS thing. Like, they won because they are a US proxy and managed to get aid through one of the most powerful military forces in the world. Not sure what them being Muslims has to do with that. Allah didn't guide them to victory.
Does he ever elaborate on his claims? Or is he just trying to sound interesting?
Could have meant that the struggle was ideological rather than (just) over capital simpliciter. There's a point to be made there. Marx and Engels argued that people do things other than for economic reasons. I'm unsure if that's quite what's happening here, though.
Because you can be a capitalist at heart but if you don't own any capital what power do you have?
I think he's an idealist and thinks ideas matter the most
You can be the biggest bootlicker at work, the bosses can even like you, but you can still get fired. The "ideas" at play here don't matter, since the capital owners will do what they need to expand their capital - and their ability to do so is because of their ownership/control of capital.