By that I mean no alienating tech like Tiktok and such, strong middle class, normal seasons/no worry of climate crisis, general optimism about the future etc. etc.
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You can’t. Capitalism has decayed, trying to move the clock backwards is where fascism comes from. That’s why fascism is reactionary, it’s an alliance of the Petite Bourgeoisie and Bourgeoisie against rising leftist sentiment among the Proletarait and Lumpenproletariat.
Additionally, it was quite terrible for ethnic minority groups (still is), and this was in the context of trying to prevent a worker revolution similar to what happened in the USSR. The social safety nets were better so it was harder to look at universal free healthcare and education in the USSR and believe they had it better, with the fall of the USSR safety nets quickly eroded in the US.
Now, to escape this hellish landscape, we need to move forward, not backward, and that means progressing to Socialism. The way forward is via revolution, which starts with organizing. Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.
The 2 best orgs in the US are Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). Pick one you like and is active near you!
I have two questions.
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After the revolution, how to you prevent the people that were influential during the revolution from seizing power for themselves, becoming the new bourgeoisie. This happened time and time again in practice.
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Even in the best case scenario, the decisions on what to produce become centralized in the hands of politicians. Political systems that we tried so far don’t work that well in practice. Is this really the best solution?
- After the revolution, how to you prevent the people that were influential during the revolution from seizing power for themselves, becoming the new bourgeoisie. This happened time and time again in practice.
This hasn’t happened “time and time again in practice.” What do you mean by a “new bourgeoisie?” How familiar are you with Marxism? You may want to read the book Blackshirts and Reds for clarifying and contextualizing the myriad successed and failures of AES states historically.
- Even in the best case scenario, the decisions on what to produce become centralized in the hands of politicians. Political systems that we tried so far don’t work that well in practice. Is this really the best solution?
Again, please elaborate. Centralization is a natural consequence of market-based systems over time, therefore Marxists see central planning of public property to be the next phase in Mode of Production. Marxism isn’t about trying to force a new society, but moving along the natural progression in Mode of Production.
AES states have not been perfect, but they have dramatically improved on previous systems. I think a good intro to the process of historical development would be reading the short essay Why do Marxists fail to bring about the “Worker’s Paradise?” You seem to believe Socialism to be something that can be implemented by decree, by fiat, rather than something that forms over time. The laws of a system depend on the Mode of Production, the capacity for democratization increases alongside centralization and increases in the productive forces. This process is why Marx says the bourgeoisie produces “more than anything, its own gravediggers.”
I’d recommend reading the second link before the first, the second article gets to the heart of your issues and takes around 20 minutes, the first link is a full book and is generally a good read, not as immediately relevant.
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Can I ask a doubt?
Bourgeoisie, Petite Bourgeoisie, Proletarait & LumpenproletariatWhat would be simpler terms(or brief 3-5 word plain language explanations) for those?
Ultra rich wealth/land hoarders/exploiters, Their immediate managers, facilitators and upper mid-level wealth/land hoarders, Average workers & Average people who are dissatisfied?Ultra rich wealth/land hoarders/exploiters
upper mid-level wealth/land hoarders,
Depends, there’s many in history that can fit the bill (eg. feudal lords (rent), industrial capitalists (profit), slaveowners (profit), and aristocracy of finance and land (interest and rent) )
Their immediate managers, facilitators
Professional managerial class, or compradors for the main dominant capitalist group (eg. the West) / hegemonic capitalist group
Average workers & Average people who are dissatisfied?
Proletariat and lumpenprole?
Bourgeoisie - Capital Owners, doesn’t need to labor to survive
Petite Bourgeoisie - Small Capital Owners, must labor to survive
Proletariat - Workers, sell their labor power to survive and own little to no Capital
Lumpenproletariat - criminals, sex workers, the scorned laborers of society
Let’s see here
Bourgeoisie:
includes grande (big) and moyenne (medium) bourgeoisie, but essentially they are medium (regional/national) and large (global) capitalists, that mainly rely on industrial profit, if not landed rend, and financial interest, based around growing industrial and financial production
Though I consider bourgeoisie in its western context, to specifically refer to the first modern form in Europe, birthed from the Medieval period
Bourg-eois --> Bourg derives from the medieval German term for “city”, as they derived from the growing cities of their era
Petty-bourgeoisie:
a small business owner (only a handful of businesses directly owned by them)
Proletariat:
wage/salaried laborers who depend heavily on their wage/salary, lest a few days/weeks leave em destitute and homeless
They are historically converted from the destruction of peasants, yeomanry, guild craftsmen, apprentices and mentors, during the progressive bourgeois revolution against feudalism.
Originally, in Rome, such term was derived from those citizens who made offspring to serve the Roman slave mode of production
Lumpenproletariat
despite its name, it is a similarly newly-created class of capitalism, more destitute and ruined than the proletariat, defined by a lack of official joblessness and stability, which include people from the simply unemployed and unhoused to criminals, strike-breakers, prostitutes, and gangsters
They are a wild card that can ally with either bourgeois or proletariat forces
Lumpen (rabble) + proletariat
I think the established socialist terms are best, even if they require further explanation because our definition and understanding of “class” is the distinction between us and your average Republican. It’s the definition from which our entire understanding of politics flows. To a Republican “class” is a series of virtues you signal, self reliance by having a pickup truck, being a hard worker by having working man boots and not being college educated. A petit- or bourgeois man born with a silver spoon in his mouth can still be happily brought into the fold of “working class” so long as they get their hands dirty and don’t talk like “the liberal elite”.
To a Marxist, “class” is based on whether you have an exploitative or exploited relationship to production.
Socialist terms are fine for those politically involved but you need more digestible info for the masses. Keep it very simple. “The Working Class” is sometimes even too much. You need to reframe the US vs THEM to be Rich vs everyone else.
Dont say poor either. People dont want to think of themselves as poor even if they are. A lot of poor Americans think theyre middle class or petite bougouise but they arent. So steal the language. The Billionaires are attacking the middle class! Instead of convincing them they are something different than what they think they are just use their language to reshape their perspective.
You do have to tailor the message for the audience, but in this context I think sticking with words and phrases which invoke the whole revolutionary Marxist tradition are a positive. Tailoring your message too far runs the risk of losing some of it. You have to meet them where they are but the goal is to guide them to where you are. When I hear someone say “Billionaires are attacking the middle class” I just tune it out to be honest, because it sounds identical to the background noise of performative liberals, accidentally based for ten seconds republicans, and dead-end utopians. Ambiguously contrarian. I think a liberal will hear it the same way. I want to say “look, we have dusty tomes and academics and structures and traditions and all of that too. We aren’t just screaming into the void.” I think that works, or at least it worked for me.
Ya well thats why populist right wing messaging works so well. Its simple. A large portion of americans have like a grade school reading level u cant be throwing around big words they dont understand or theyll tune you out. Its something Donald Trump does really well and part of why he is so popular. He speaks in simple terms, and small words. The anger someone like Trump harnesses and aims toward immigrants and trans people could just as easily be aimed toward the rich. A revolution is not done by academics and marxists. Its our job to guide the revolution and make sure it ends in socialism. The revolution itself is a destructive and violent act largely carried out by the masses who have no real ideology outside of wanting to be comfortable.
When the masses anger is directed at the institutions of oppression they will tear them down, and in the chaos a much smaller group of educated and prepared marxists can use that opportunity to take the reigns and guide things to a socialist future. The actual education of the masses on marxism and socialist ideas comes after. You can educate people now, but youll never be able to do it at scale until we are already in power. What we need right now is a strong and organized small group who are ready to spring into action when the time is right. Like the Bolsheviks. You have a small professional group that has a clear vision to shape the chaos of revolution into something positive.
There will be no revolution, mate.
That’s like saying you can keep heating up water and have it never boil. Disparity is rising, revolution is already happening around the world. Capitalism is continuing to decay. Revolution is inevitable as long as climate collapse or World War 3 don’t end us first.
Something that Westerners would do well to remember is that the revolution may not happen where you are, but it doesn’t have to
So you’re certain that revolution is impossible, but you’re also certain that if there is a “strong middle class” in the future, that you would actually be a part of it?
Maybe you don’t understand that there isn’t simply any future to speak of at the moment.
With libs like you? Sadly, you might be right. You’ll whine about the world ending as you refuse to lift a finger to stop it.
In the dark times, should the stars also go out?
Try to examine the absurdity of this statement for a moment. You think the current system of governance and control which has barely existed for a century or 2 is going to continue in perpetuity for the rest of human history? You could argue this version of global capitalism isnt even 100 years old yet if you look at the end of WW2 as the start. So your argument is that a system that is younger than some people still alive today will never end? Or is it that you think we will go extinct in the very near short term and people wont overthrow the government before that happens?
There just isn’t enough will or time.
Not everyone is so apathetic about it. The billionaires building their apocalypse bunkers in abandoned missile silos certainly aren’t. The people involved in ramping up the dehumanization of immigrants, preparing for the cruelty that will be inflicted upon the influx of those escaping man made “natural” disasters aren’t. This is the sort of game which is won or lost before you start playing. It starts soon. We have to build that will now or else.
The solution would be to ban any right-wing politics worldwide and torture billionaires in submissions and destroy their bunkers so they can’t escape, but they will never leave do that.
Not a USA-ian, but weren’t issues like racism and homophobia worse off then?
Right. We have to regain the good without losing our progress.
Except that there’s basically no good.
…the rights that people have gained in the last 30 years? Like gay marriage?
Climate crisis.
Climate crisis.
Climate crisis.
Ozone hole anybody? The climate crisis existed back then, do you think it suddenly popped into existence? It has existed since the second Industrial Revolution, it just got progressively worse
The 80s and 90s still had a relatively normal situation, that’s what I’m saying.
You want to go back to (nonexistent) 80s climate policy?? I don’t think you’ve thought this through.
No, I want to go when seasons were normal and we didn’t feel the effect of climate crisis.
Sorry, I left my magic wand in my other pants…
Ok. Which is why I said, we need to go back to the good, while keeping the progress we made. You asked about the progress. This is the progress I meant.
Climate crisis is worse.
“I can excuse racism, but I draw the line at climate crisis!”
“You can excuse racism?”
Nowhere I said that I excuse racism (as if today racism didn’t exist…)
Well, it seemed like you were saying that if given a choice between more racism and more climate crisis, that you would choose more racism because of how “climate crisis is worse”. Don’t you think that’s at all a weird or uncomfortable thing to say, given how there’s a frightening number of people nowadays who genuinely are trying to present “more racism or more climate change” as an actual choice that people will have to make?
Because civil rights won’t be worth shit when everything burns.
Yeah, but we talked about it way less, so it didn’t seem like a big deal.
/s?
Man, I am much more worried about climate crisis and not being able to buy a house.
You can worry about two things. You know, if you want.
Yes, but again, life was better because of what I mentioned in the post.
Definitely, but if the recent spike we’re seeing keeps going we should be well on our way to 80s and 90s levels by next year!
Holy fuck, you come across as such an entitled asshole! “How can I make my life better. No comments about other people’s lives getting better in the time frame I mentioned, those things weren’t a problem for me and I don’t care.” Also, “I want the blissful ignorance of my childhood [guessing here] without acknowledging the reality of that time that led to the consequences I wish I wasn’t living in right now.”
So, back to the question. I don’t know l, maybe hit yourself in the head with a rock until you have the intellect of a six-year-old and have your parents take care of you for the rest of your life? Find some other way to reject the negative reality of the present as much as you reject the positive reality of the present and the negative reality of the past?
No i hope you won’t get back your 90’s. You can take MY 90’s when your country is demolished and sold for peanuts and people lost their living, their savings, their jobs and their hope, just like mine was for the profit of yours.
Oh, great, another butthurt tankie. No one cares about your country.
There are a lot of problems, but there are a lot of things we aren’t worrying about now, either. AIDS was killing millions, and there was no treatment. The Satanic Panic. People were exposed to lead and asbestos everywhere. Duck and cover drills in schools for when the nukes went off. I mean, we’re all scrambling to figure out how to stop climate disasters, but then they were scrambling to stop some nutter on either side from pushing a button and ending the world! Where I come from, they still took kids away from their parents for the crime of being Aboriginal! Things change.
I choose to be optimistic. All through the twentieth century, overpopulation and mass famine were looming spectres, and better crops, phosphate fertilizers, falling birthdates all led to us not really being that worried about that. Read Stand on Zanzibar.
Crime rates are down all over the world.
The inequality? 1920’s. The FTC and the EU are (finally, IMO) taking big tech to task for their monopolistic behaviour. It’s moving slow, but there is starting to be the political will to address the challenges.
Things go in cycles.
There are a lot of problems, but there are a lot of things we aren’t worrying about now, either. AIDS was killing millions, and there was no treatment. The Satanic Panic. People were exposed to lead and asbestos everywhere. Duck and cover drills in schools for when the nukes went off. I mean, we’re all scrambling to figure out how to stop climate disasters, but then they were scrambling to stop some nutter on either side from pushing a button and ending the world! Where I come from, they still took kids away from their parents for the crime of being Aboriginal! Things change.
Yeah, because that risk doesn’t exist anymore…
The good life of the 80s?
well, OP seems to be a healthy white straight male in his 20s, otherwise they definitely wouldn’t comment this.
Uuuuuugh, again, I repeat: NO CLIMATE CRISIS AND CHEAPER LIVING MAKE THE 80S A BETTER TIME
1981 interest rates: 18%.
1980s homicide rate 10.2/100000, today: 6.3/100000
(Violent crime follows this trend)Lead. Lead everywhere
And asbestos. I work in hazardous materials and the amount of things that had asbestos in them is terrifying.
Asbestos carpets, and asbestos-structured paint for fucks sake. Imagine how many peoppe sanded down asbestos paint…
Why should I care?
Again, no climate crisis + cheaper housing = nobody cares.
Growing up in the 80s, climate was a crisis, it was just ignored, so we are here now, with interest. We (society)did just a little to deal with the hole in the ozone layer, then punted.
And life was better because the effects were limited. Not that hard to understand m8.
