Been in the same exact position :(

Hope you get to make up for the lost time

At least his critique is clear and coherent.

If validity of theory was based on what its writers had done, then Marx would be worthless and Urban Guerilla doctrine would be invaluable.

Trade and wage labor also aren’t exclusive to capitalism.

Yes, trade isn’t exclusive to capitalism, I never claimed otherwise. However, there is a distinction between commodity exchange for exchange-value (capitalist trade) and international distribution of goods to satisfy needs (socialist distribution), whether through planned allocation or transitional forms like labor vouchers.

Wage labor is specific to capitalism, it’s a sale of labor-power as a commodity, exchanged for a wage, with surplus value being appropriated by a class/managerial apparatus. This is THE fundamental relation of capitalism, and you’d be better off reading theory than blindly quoting it.

Though I will give a concession - socialism is such a meaningless term that it means like 4 different things depending on who says it: liberals would say it’s social democracy, ML’s say its state capitalism, Marxists and Leninists say it’s socialist mode of production (post-transition period) and Posadists would say it’s when nuclear annihilation. A word doesn’t make a thing so if you consider state capitalism to be socialist - fair, all power to you. However - Marxists, Leninists, Liberals would all collectively disagree. You did drop a Lenin quote to strengthen your argument so let me do the same:

• Lenin, The Tax in Kind

No one, I think, in studying the question of the economic system of Russia, has denied its transitional character. Nor, I think, has any Communist denied that the term Soviet Socialist Republic implies the determination of the Soviet power to achieve the transition to socialism, and not that the existing economic system is recognised as a socialist order.

In the same text he also calls NEP USSR as state capitalist due to the concessions he had to make for the transition, which is explicitly made distinct from Socialism.

And I’m adamant that it’s a mischaracterization. Identifying the dominant mode of production is not a “one drop rule”, it’s literally foundational Marxist analysis - modes are defined by prevailing relations of production, not how it’s managed or ideological labels put onto them.

You’ve done a really good job misrepresenting my argument, keep it up.

That is another western chauvinist talking point.

Yeah, any critique of 3rd world communist countries is western chauvinism, therefore we should avoid looking at those countries through objective materialist perspective and uncritically support them just because they’re third-worldist - that’s something an imperialist crakkka like me should know.

That any development of industry (the primary task of countries who’ve just freed themselves from colonial rule), is a “betrayal” of socialism, because it didn’t go according to whatever the given critic laid out as sufficiently socialist enough, and that only the western critics of socialist countries have the correct plan.

I’d like you to point out where I said that industrialization is bad. The argument is literally about how the development was achieved and I concluded that it was through (state) capitalism and capitalist mode of production rather than socialism, even saying how it’s good that they managed to build up wealth. I explicitly didn’t moralize this either, this is literally how these countries materially functioned.

My critique also comes strictly from Marxism which is essentially the basis for communism regardless of culture, but sure.

China specifically can’t be called state capitalist in the slightest, considering that the CPC stands above the political system

You’re confusing political power with class relations, the key isn’t who holds political power but what social relations of production are. If a state (CPC controlled or otherwise) oversees an economy where wage labor, capital accumulation, commodity exchange persists, then it’s still state capitalism.

What no theory does to you.

Yeah, if you’re operating within Stalinist ML bubble. Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s inherently “true”, and it can be healthy to read other communist sides/perspectives. Some recommendations would be Marx’s writings, Lenin, Bordiga if you want a lesser known but still respected Leninist who’s critical of ML’s/Stalinism.

No one claims magic here, and it’s true - a transitional DOTP period must happen, but it’s not a license to preserve the capitalist relations indefinitely. The fundamental relations of production that I’ve mentioned must be consciously dismantled over time as a precondition for socialism, that’s what the proletarian dictatorship is literally for. If not, then it’s only a matter of time until the state reverts to bourgeois control disguised as “socialist”.

Nationalizing capital while leaving value production intact leaves capitalism functionally preserved, read Critique of the Gotha Programme by Marx where he makes this explicit - converting private to state property without abolishing wage labor/value mediation and calling it Socialism is literally Lassallean nonsense.

Capitalist production is not magically nullified by the presence of a party member or state shareholding either: workers still sell their labor-power, surplus value is still extracted, production is for market sale or in other words, capitalist mode of production prevails at full force. Legal oversight is a managerial form, not an abolition of class relations.

Meanwhile the success in question: The 3rd world communist countries have managed to more or less industrialize and build up wealth, but under (state) capitalist system with all the bells of whistles which are markets, commodity production, wage labor, etc. In other words, they used capitalism to build up wealth.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually think they had some absolutely amazing policies for the workers like free housing and social benefits, and good on them for building themselves up. However, this has nothing to do with socialism (socialist mode of production in this case) or communism as it was achieved with, and is therefore a win for capitalism - the same system that drove colonialism and the system that had already built up wealth for ‘non-socialist’ feudal/agrarian countries in the 19-20th century.

EDIT: Damn, judging from the amount of upvotes, it genuinely feels like walking into a bar and everyone drawing a gun and pointing at you. This is probably the most antagonistic I’ve been towards ML (or MLM/Dengist/Maoist) ideology and it’s kinda disappointing how there’s no actual non-ML Marxists to be seen here.

I love how the conversation went from “all billionaires are bad eat the rich!!” to “hey this good billionaire is talking smack about a bad billionaire, time to defend them from criticism because they did good thing”

Doing nothing is praxis

If an open world is just there for collectibles/unlocks or just feels otherwise unnecessary to the primary selling feature of the game (like story), then yeah its a hard pass.

Otherwise, if the open world is actually a core part of the game like in most MMO’s such as Old School Runescape, then it can be quite enjoyable.

In a number-go-up kind of sense, yeah - it’s inherently gamification of social media and it is fun for some of our brains. However, I also think that karma or any other kind of “engagement accumulation” turns social media from a place of discussion into a competition for attention, where you’re more incentivized to post solely for upvotes. Only a small minority takes posting seriously like this I admit it, but it does make the experience worse for everyone.

That’s not to say the mindset doesn’t exist without karma, only that it gets amplified.

no way, bernie is actually based??

(Though to be honest, I don’t get Bernie hate that much - sure, he’s a bourgeoisie liberal and the perception around him being some revolutionary socialist is just outright false, but he lowkey might be the only ‘sane’ liberal out there in the US)

Uncropped tweet, it’s Dec 2019

That’s pretty normal, we all do stupid shit as kids because of our environments/friend circles or just general growing pains.

Recognizing that what you’ve done is actually horrible is the most important step in terms of maturing and growing up, though of course it’s not the full battle. After all, how would someone change for the better if they don’t have such realization?

All in all you’re likely not a bad person, just someone who needs to/is in the process of maturing.

Speaking of YouTube channels, I like Josh Strife Hayes when it comes to talking about toxic masculinity, bad role models, becoming a more positive and better person - things like that, though he mostly does this on streams, clip channel of which is Josh Strife Says.

I like this video in particular, but there are other clips that speak about similar topics.

Been there, all depressed because of current state of the world, and learning that the “solutions” or “ways out” by the media are false or just delaying the inevitable/distractions, and judging from your comments you might be feeling the same thing.

However, if you do that, not only would your daughter suffer but the world would also lose someone truly radical in today’s society, someone who would truly sees past the ideology and propaganda we’re subjected to. If everyone like that were to off themselves or start heavily abusing substances as a tool of escapism, the world would never change and people with a future ahead of them like your daughter would be doomed for certain.

It’s important to cling onto hope - a better world is possible and you can be a part of building it, both individually but more importantly, collectively. Drop subtle hints in your conversations about what you think is wrong nowadays, who the real enemies you see are, plant the seeds in your colleagues and hope they’ll come to the same conclusions by themselves. If you see any resistance organizations aligned with your views politically, why not join them - after all, you’re not alone. Point is - there is still hope for change.

Though if it works and it does make you feel better, you can also start focusing on positive/good news, even though I’m skeptical it would work, pandora’s box and all. Maybe even seek counseling or therapy if you have access to it.

I don’t have enough hubris to say that I have all the answers, especially when it comes to the way forward - this is something that’s up to the revolutionary party collectively to decide, but I do disagree with the ML’s theory and methodology, especially with “Socialism in one state” or the ‘worship’ of State Capitalism. However, if you had a gun to my head, I’d probably manage to squeak out something possibly infantile like this:

When it comes to proletarian revolutions that attempt to build socialism, internationalism is a necessity (both to allow international trade to help meet everyone’s needs and weakening of the capitalist global order and reducing them as a threat) - once proletarian and an international party takes power, the focus should be in coordinating/exporting the revolution worldwide mostly via the support of proletarian movements, else it will get isolated, start playing for survival, have to adapt to capitalism and eventually collapse or degenerate as seen historically.

Also, instead of treating state capitalism and markets as a transitional phase that is constantly expanded/built upon, it should instead not be viewed as legitimate and rather something residual, to be replaced as soon as possible. In theory, this should allow for a certain amount of goods to be produced for use, and goods that are more scarce could be produced as commodities and rationed through money.

Once sufficient economic restructuring for transition towards socialist mode of production is done, that’s when the transition towards non-accumulative labor vouchers can be done, which should eliminate the law of value and capital relations.

I don’t think it’s particularly productive to back up controversial claims within the Marxist current with statements like “it’s clear that xyz” or “it’s without question.” These topics are controversial because they aren’t clear and are questionable claims.

I really appreciate this and you are right - the claims I made do go against ML theory, and whether something is right or wrong in this case is dependent on one’s views and perspectives (as in intra-Marxism) rather than cold, hard, unquestionable facts. I will definitely try to avoid such loaded language in the future.

In essence, I do largely agree with you - the material conditions in the historically socialist countries (USSR specifically in this case but can also more or less be applied to others) be it their peasant problem or being isolated due to international revolutions failing did require them to do what they had done and develop using state capitalism or “building socialism in one state”, and they were successful in that regard. Same applies to the anti-colonial national liberation movements - they were successful and historically progressive and indeed should be celebrated.

However, the issue that this is a win for (state) capitalism and all the baggage that comes with it rather than actual socialism, given how socialist mode of production was never realized and arguments such as “people’s billionaires who will get punished by going against the party” or “the economy was nationalized” don’t define socialism. Wage labor remained (therefore surplus extraction too), commodity production and markets both within the country and interaction with international capitalist world market had remained (Why Russia isn’t socialist talks about this). One could also make an argument that even in those countries where capitalists got done away with (which is a proletarian W) but state capitalism persisted, the functions of the capitalist remained and were carried out by mere managers, like how Engels in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific points out:

Partial recognition of the social character of the productive forces forced upon the capitalists themselves. Taking over of the great institutions for production and communication, first by joint-stock companies, later in by trusts, then by the State. The bourgeoisie demonstrated to be a superfluous class. All its social functions are now performed by salaried employees.

And again to reiterate, rather than being a win for socialism, it’s instead a win for a regressive form of it which is state capitalism that’s comparable to social democracy.

As about your point about the rejection of AES, that’s not my argument at all - instead of rejecting any attempt outright and waiting for a perfect revolution, one should instead support all revolutionary attempts but, most importantly, realize when the revolution had failed/ended instead of clinging onto false hope which is something that ML’s tend to do at least from my perspective. Of course, when a revolution fails depends on ones perspective, but from mine it’s when the proletarian revolution (which must be internationalist) fails to spread and a country has to start fully focusing inwards for its survival within global capitalism and the inevitable participation in it, like what happened in USSR in 1920’s - at that point, it’s only a matter of time until the country falls to revisionism, degeneration of socialist ideas and the aforementioned full reintegration into global capitalist system.

That being said, I really do appreciate your responses, even though some of them might be too long for me to respond to.

Love how the exact same thing is now being said about the US lmao (the collapse part at least), I LOVE the media machine

Just because something is initially successful doesn’t mean it’s necessarily correct, and I’m saying that as a proponent of a vanguard party or similar form of centralized organization, given how it’s a necessity post-revolution.

USSR’s revolution was successful thanks to the Bolshevik Party, but after a while it was clear that the party had replaced the proletariat as the ruling class and instead had started to direct/rule over the workers (in order words, the party became Substitutionist). Later on, the party had fully succumbed to revisionism and eventual collapse. Similar thing happened to China, and even though the party didn’t disappear, it’s without a question a bourgeoisie party and you’d need insane amount of misinterpretation of Marxist theory to claim otherwise.

For other revolutions like in Cuba or Vietnam, even though the same thing applies right from the get-go (given how Stalin is a revisionist), one could argue that they weren’t Marxist revolutions, but rather part of anti-colonial wave of the 20th century that’s more in the ballpark of “bourgeois-nationalist revolution”. Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh was particularly explicit about this.

And to go back to the first point I made, a fun example that would push this kind of logic would be what’s happening to US right now - Trump has successfully gone into power twice now, it doesn’t automatically mean that his success means that he and his policies are correct.