HauntedBySpectacle

I think Jamie Foxx's impression is one of the closest. The tone of voice is perfect; the phrasing is not completely on point but still much better than almost any I've heard.

Create a large network of state and/or cooperatively owned cannabis farms to mass-produce hemp for industrial purposes, and every strain of quality marijuana known to man. You think the weed's too strong these days? That's ok, the state will devote its resources to developing 10% THC strains that taste like a gourmet meal. You want to be sent to the moon? Why yes, there will be 99.9% pure concentrate oils widely available.

Just as the USSR had an alcohol ration, there will be a mids ration available for all. Any unclaimed rations will be distributed to the gulags to forcibly pacify political prisoners. While high and marginally more open-minded, they will be made to play video games where every character is a black lesbian and all the messaging is based on post-colonial theory. Only after their daily shift constructing and tending the farms is finished, of course.

Any questions?

DPRK, Laos, Iran are anti-imperialist countries (and arguably South Africa) which do not. There are Euro imperialist countries which do. This isn't totally clear cut.

Even if it were, that many countries in the Global South rhetorically support a position does not automatically make it correct, even if that is often a useful heuristic. NAFOids post maps of Global South countries which voted in the UN to condemn the Russian invasion of Russia. So what?

las Malvinas

with you on the rest, but come on. it's a thousand shepherds on a barren rock no one else ever lived on.

I said it was unideal but not fascist, not that it "rules". I agree with you that fighting poverty is the best solution to crime, I just dislike the label fascist being used for a concept so broad it's happened in basically every society including socialist ones. Also I sent NATOpedia because it's a short overview and easily readable, maybe take its specifics with a grain of salt.

i just don't think it's fascist even if it's not the ideal solution

Pretty explicitly fascist

what do you make of this? i think that's hyperbolic

That's a sophomore album, not the debut. Bleach is Nirvana's debut. Pretty cool album cover, but not iconic like Nevermind's or Blue Album's

Authoritarian compassion sounds pretty based to me

Also, Peterson claims to be a Christian. "Be nice, or else Hell" is basically the doctrine of that whole religion, I do wonder how one would consider that any different from Authoritarian Compassion.

parts of this got a chuckle outta me from like 25 to 45 mins in, but man that was rough. I have to thank myself for not paying for this show.

Didn't expect to get a reply on this a month later, glad someone's still reading it.

I've been really frustrated with the lack of consensus on the left of what socialism even means for a while so here I tried to collect some of my thoughts on how you approach that question.

I, I suspect like a lot of others, first socialism defined by the left (instead of completely right-wing misunderstandings) as workers' or social ownership of the means of production, and so tried to apply that definition as an absolute to real societies. I see that commonly, all over left spaces.

I used to be skeptical of the claim I'd seen later from some MLs that no, it's defined by the presence of a dictatorship of the proletariat. This used to confuse me, and seemed like apologia for AES not being sufficiently socialist or whatever or being too fixated on what the state looks like rather than what the economy really is.

But after reading more Marx, learning more about the presence of non-socialized economic sectors in not just China but AES all over the world, and considering what it really means that every capitalist country has a state sector of some kind, and even large ones, this began to make a lot more sense to me as a definition than trying to dogmatically apply our ideal arrangement of property to entire economies in a period of historical transition. You can't take an absolute view of ownership to identify a mode of production, there has been overlap and even combination for centuries.

I won't restate much more, but it really stands out to me that my old view is ahistorical and dogmatic, and unfortunately prevalent. Obviously the ultimate goal remains complete common ownership and abolition of class, but it can't be a simple litmus test for underdeveloped revolutionary societies in real historical conditions. I want to shout this conclusion from the (online) rooftops sometimes so I'm glad you read this a month later and thought it was good or helpful. Thanks

I think the framing of "Pivot toward capitalist" and "pivot back [to socialism]" misses the mark entirely.

First, capitalism as a mode of production is not synonymous with market development. The presence of markets and private property is not sufficient to define a mode of production as capitalism, because they both long preceded capitalism. Under systemic limitations, they existed under classical slavery and feudalism. And they continue under socialism for some time, again under systemic limitations. This does not come from Deng Xiaoping or my rectum, it comes straight from Marx and Engels:

“Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”

• Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme

“Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke? No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.”

• Friedrich Engels, Principles of Communism

Second, what are the systemic limitations? Put as simply as possible, the limitations are a) political, defined by the class character of the state, and b) economic-systemic, defined by what ends production is oriented towards.

Before capitalism, the state was controlled by the feudal aristocracy; a bourgeoisie existed, but was not hegemonic. It was not hegemonic politically, as it did not control the state. It was not hegemonic systemically, because production, on a societal level, was not yet devoted to the accumulation of capital and profit above all else. The bourgeoisie sought capital, but the motive force of production as a whole was directed toward supporting the maintenance of the aristocracy, above capital accumulation for its own sake.

After capitalism, the bourgeoisie exists but is subordinate to the dictatorship of the proletariat; production is directed toward serving the material needs of all of society. It should be obvious a bourgeoisie exists under socialism from the very term dictatorship of the proletariat; if there were no bourgeoisie, who exactly would the dictatorship be over, be directed against? If the bourgeoisie no longer exists, if all people are of the same class and production is sufficient for all needs, a classless society has been achieved. Communism is present.

Even capital accumulation exists: the Stalin-era USSR was certainly interested in developing industry, physical capital, and in acquiring hard currency, financial capital. They wanted continuous reinvestment in production, as capital accumulation incentivises, they wanted foreign trade. But these were not ends in themselves, they were to support the development of socialism and support the needs of the people. There were markets to some extent in all periods of the USSR’s history. The Chinese economy is the same way; there were markets throughout Mao’s tenure, and they continue to exist today. Whether these things exist is a foregone conclusion (until communism). In what proportion they exist is not the best proxy for what mode of production a society is under.

That brings us to the third point, that determining the class character of the state and the dominant goal of the economy is a clearly superior evaluation of whether a society is capitalist or socialist than splitting hairs over the proportion of a planned or public sector vs an unplanned or private sector. There just is not some clear-cut, statistical line where if you have this large of private sector, then it is capitalism, or if you have this large of a state or cooperative sector, then it is socialism. It doesn’t exist, and talking about “pivoting” to socialism or capitalism based on the proportional role of the market implies it does. Capitalist countries are not more or less capitalist than others because they have more state ownership. The goal of the economy, even in the state sector, remain principally capital accumulation. I’m sure it’s clear to you that social democracies in mid-20th century Europe were not “pivoting” toward socialism just because their state sector was growing. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie mattered, the orientation of the economy to profit mattered. The corollary to that is that Cuba is not pivoting to capitalism because its economy is 77% public instead of the well over 90% before the fall of the USSR. Venezuela is not capitalist just because its economy is still mostly private; the dictatorship of the proletariat and the goals of its development matter. China is no different.

Fourth, it does not matter if it is a one decade-long NEP or a many decades-long Reform and Opening Up. The length of time of such a market policy, devoid of context, is not relevant to determining the mode of production. Complaining that they have not yet “pivoted” is not just misguided for that goal, it is also impatient. Communism is contingent on long historical processes; it cannot be willed into being without the necessary development. Attempting to resembles the Great Leap Forward. Yes, China is more industrialized than ever, yes it is getting wealthier, but that does not mean you can just press the button and will the bourgeoisie away.

The material circumstances determined the length of the NEP; some in the USSR thought it should continue for decades, but it did not, could not, because of the international situation. You cannot separate the Great Break and the extraordinarily rapid transition to an almost entirely centrally planned, state administered economy from the impending, foreseeable onset of World War 2. The Stalin-era economy was made for war. Importantly, capitalist countries also implemented similarly drastic changes to the composition of the economy to meet the international situation’s demands. Did the USA “pivot” to socialism in 1942 and then “pivot back” to capitalism in 1945 just because the composition of the public, planned sector vs. the private, unplanned sector changed dramatically in favor of the former? Of course not. The length of the Reform and Opening period is not relevant to whether or not China is socialist: the causes, effects, and orientation of it toward communist goals are.

So China is socialist because it is a dictatorship of the proletariat and because its economy is directed to social ends. The state tightly controls capital, is unquestionably dominant politically over the whims of individual bourgeois like Jack Ma. The state was born out of revolution and has maintained its revolutionary, one-party character. When the unplanned sector exceeds its bounds, it is checked by the state and reformed to serve social needs, like happened with the education sector at great cost to capital accumulation. Social needs come first. They are unafraid to nationalize whole corporations and sectors, unafraid to challenge capital accumulation. If China had “pivoted” to capitalism it would have joined the West wholeheartedly, it would have liberalized its politics, it would not subject itself to imperialism by claiming to be socialist, it would drop its ideology and commit instead to liberal “democracy” imperialism. The vast majority of Chinese workers approve of the state and believe it to be democratic, as in representing them and serving their needs.

The enormous increase in living standards for the whole Chinese people is unparalleled in world history. It was achieved without imperialism, without slavery, without those engines that powered capitalism’s development. It has been distributed far more equitably than the large increases in societal wealth under capitalism in the 19th and 20th century. There is no longer absolute poverty in China, there is no longer food insecurity which plagued the country for millenia. Even in the US, in the epicenter of capitalism, there is more food insecurity, to completely leave aside millions starving each year in the Global South. It has been a sustained increase in wealth for all without disruption from the anarchy of production, the boom-bust cycle inherent to capitalism. Hundreds of millions of people have experienced continual improvement in their standard of living and enjoy material abundance and security unlike any of their predecessors. If you think that is capitalist, then I would wonder why you do not support capitalism. There are more in-depth, complex explanations of its system serving social needs rather than capital accumulation but this is a surface-level examination, from my memory. These facts alone I think warrant strong support.