Cowbee [he/they]

Actually, this town has more than enough room for the two of us

He/him or they/them, doesn’t matter too much

Marxist-Leninist ☭

Interested in Marxism-Leninism? Check out my “Read Theory, Darn it!” introductory reading list!

  • 2 Posts
  • 233 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: December 31st, 2023

help-circle

  • No, I’m not. The conditions that led to the New Deal are entirely different from the conditions of today, so we must reexamine if such a program could be forced into passing today. I don’t believe there’s a path to that, unless there is already revolutionary pressure bubbling and risking the entire system.










  • It is not Socialist. Social programs are not Socialism. Every economy is a mix of private and public property, that doesn’t make it mixed Capitalism and Socialism. Capitalism and Socialism are descriptors for economies at large, as you cannot remove entities from the context they are in. A worker cooperative is not a “socialist” part of a Capitalist economy, because it exists in the broader Capitalist machine and must use its tools.

    What determines if a system is Capitalist or Socialist is if private property or public property is the primary aspect of a society, and which class has control. In Canada, Private Property is dominant, so Social Programs are used to support that.


  • Social programs are not Socialism. Every economy is a mix of private and public property, that doesn’t make it mixed Capitalism and Socialism. Capitalism and Socialism are descriptors for economies at large, as you cannot remove entities from the context they are in. A worker cooperative is not a “socialist” part of a Capitalist economy, because it exists in the broader Capitalist machine and must use its tools.

    What determines if a system is Capitalist or Socialist is if private property or public property is the primary aspect of a society, and which class has control. In Norway, Private Property is dominant, so Social Programs are used to support that.



  • This retains class, though. If your councils only have ownership of their own jurisdictions, then the members of each council are Petite Bourgeoisie. Marx specifically advocated for full centralization because chiefly it becomes a necessity anyways with increasingly complex production, but also because it gives more democratic control over the whole of the economy, not just individual bits.


  • This isn’t true, unless you have a different conception of what “class” is from Marx and Marxists. The State is the only path to a stateless society, in that the state disappears once all property is publicly owned and planned, and thus the “state” whithers away, leaving government behind.

    For Marx, the State is chiefly the instruments of government that reinforce class society, like Private Property Rights, not the entire government.



  • However, if you use the right magic words you can convince them that it will be good for them.

    This is Utopianism, and was practiced by early Socialists like the Owenites. The problem is that such a practice never works. One of Marx’s major advancements was in developing Scientific Socialism, which looks at material reality and its trends to see how to better guide them.


  • Historically, this just doesn’t work, and it even risks supporting PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as “MAGA Communism.” Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics. You need to be honest with people, otherwise they will learn they have been tricked and resent you. Further, this isn’t really Socialism, but Capitalism with bigger safety nets.

    The problem with policy is that it needs material foundational backing, otherwise it will be walked back if the class in power doesn’t like it.


  • Considering we are speaking about the US, those safety nets would come from the massive Imperialism the US commits constantly. Workers in the Global South would continue to slave away so workers in the US can live cushy lives.

    In a Socialist system, we can end that, but under Capitalism there is no path to deliberately end the practice of Imperialism, as it forms the basis of US foreign policy, and why the US Empire has hundreds of millitary bases around the world.