Hello. I am a civic nationalist republican. I have several questions about leftist theory

Hello. I am a civic nationalist republican. I have several questions about leftist theory.

1. Is totalitarianism an inevitability of communism, and if not, what is the justification for most/all socialist or communist regimes in history being totalitarian?

2. How would a communist economy function without greed to drive people? Maybe I'm just too entrenched in Adam Smith but I just don't understand how people could be as productive in a communist economy.

3. What advantages does a communist/socialist nation offer over a traditional civic nationalist republic?

4. What do communist/socialist parties or nations offer to fix race/gender issues in the US considering it is already in US law to treat all citizens the same?

5. What is leftist reasoning for allowing free immigration? I read some history about Trotsky and how he wanted to turn the whole world red and make nation-states obsolete but I don't see how that fits into the modern world.

Thank you for your time. Feel free to ban/sage if I am not welcome. I've tried reading a somewhat significant amount of leftist literature but I feel as though I didn't get anything substantial out of it besides what individual communists believed.

Marxism is authoritarian.


Localization of all production. The creation of decentralized directly democratic neighborhood assemblies, and communal living in accordance with ecological principles and libertarian ethics.The confederation of these assemblies to both prevent conflict between them and to coordinate on projects too large from one "neighborhood". This is communalism, mind you, not communism. Communism is supposed to be a post work society, barring some left-com interpretation of communism.


The elimination of domination, hierarchy, and the exploitation and inhumane treatment that results from it.

4. What do communist/socialist parties or nations offer to fix race/gender issues in the US considering it is already in US law to treat all citizens the same?

Simply by creating a movement that empowers all of them.


Free immigration is inconsequential in a world without states or nations. The modern world is more a less a cancer on human dignity and the environment, and it will eventually result in a cataclysmic change of one kind or another.

If you want to know where I'm coming from better you can read pics related.

I will try to answer you as best as I can from my own perspectives:

1) totalitarianism is an inevitability of any kind of historical "progress." For example, one would say that capitalism had to become global for it to really render the old feudal order irrelevant, or at least subject to the same rules of the game. Is it not now more than ever that we are totalised under capitalism? Are we not encouraged to sell off our bodies, our labour-power, as commodity? Why is it that we must work for capital instead of capital working for us? My vision of communism should allow that everyone is left to their own stupidities. As for the second part of your question, I don't think you'll always find those willing to accept the conversation at this level. They would not defend something like the USSR as socialist, and would even go as far as saying nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated.

2) one of the things some socialists took from the Bible: those who do not work, neither shall they eat. We should not eat someone's food without sharing in the toil it takes to grow it nor offering up an equivalent; that would make us no better than the bourgeoisie. In fact it is the socialists who have laboured night and day to avoid being the slightest expense to anyone, not because they had no right to ask their necessities from someone else, but because they wanted to set them an example of discipline. I also do not really buy this idea from Adam Smith about the power of capitalism to transform something like greed into something productive that he gives in his butcher problem. Supposedly, given their selfish nature, shopkeepers will try to over-charge you, workers will try their best to goof off from work, and professional managers will try to maximize their own salaries and prestige rather than profits, which go to the shareholders rather than themselves. However, the power of the market will put strict limits to, if not completely eliminate, these behaviours: shopkeepers won't cheat you if they have a competitor around the corner; workers would not dare to slack off if they know they can be easily replaced; hired managers will not be able to fleece the shareholders if they operate in a vibrant stock market, which will ensure that managers who generate lower profits, and thus lower share prices, risk losing their jobs through takeover.

3) political legitimacy that relies neither on majorities nor minorities. We should not do something because more or less people like it. We should do something because it is right, scientific, and true. Moreover, civic nationalism always seems to fall into the trap of "tolerance" as their foundational tenet in ideology. The cultivation of "tolerance" as a political end implicitly constitutes a rejection of politics as a domain in which conflict can be productively articulated and addressed, a domain in which citizens can be transformed by their participation.

4) If formalities, or things like voting, fixed problems they would be made illegal. For such a change in society to happen requires risky actions , involving boldness and initiative on the part of many people acting at the same time against a better-armed, well-coordinated enemy. Humanitarian sympathy and frigid reliance on the abstract rules of equality for everyone does not supply a strong enough motive, and no historical process sufficiently strengthens it.

Only ML ones were totalitarian.

5) I am personally not for closed borders, but open borders can be just as disastrous, if not more so. The people who support the latter even seem like the biggest hypocrites who know very well that it will never happen, because it would instantly trigger a populist revolt, like what's happening now with Europe. They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive. But this is not a solution. It is an aggravation of the difficulty.

Was going to type up a big response, but I feel covered most of my thoughts in a far more concise manner. I will make one quick addition though.

Totalitarianism as a descriptor is a rather useless term, as it is almost universally thrown around simply as a general derogatory title for any system that the individual in question doesn't like.
In the common understanding of totalitarianism, no, communism does not inherently lead to it or necessitate it. Quite the opposite, communism seeks ultimately to abolish the very possibility of such positions of power existing having those positions be abused. You WILL get some disagreement as as to the methodology employed to achieve Communism though, with the traditional Marxist approach being the temporary seizure and empowerment of the state in order to oversee the dismantling of capitalism. Even then, you'll get disagreement on how far that goes. Marxists airing on the libertarian side of things would likely say that the extent of action should be limited primarily to matters of the economic apparatus and political bodies. You personally are probably thinking of the ML (Stalinist) line of thought, which isn't nearly as widely supported anymore (and where it is, it often takes an almost unrecognizable form from the 20th century understanding). Then you have the anarchist side of things: they also seek to achieve Communism, but they abolish the state during the revolutionary struggle rather than an indeterminate time after revolution.

Also if you have not done so already, I recommend you actually read Marx for yourself. His criticisms of capitalism were rooted directly in the works of Adam Smith and David Ricardo: theorists he was intimately familiar with and accepted for their understanding of the mechanisms by which capitalism operates.

1. Totalitarianism isn't inevitably the result of communism. Totalitarianism is typically defined as the proliferation of the state into every aspect of life, ie no distinction between public and private spheres. The ultimate goal of communism is the abolition of the state, so obviously totalitarianism is counter productive to that end. It would also be incorrect to characterize every socialist country as totalitarian. Some of them were for some periods of time, for example Stalin's Russia and contemporary North Korea. Post Stalin the USSR could be called authoritarian for sure, but not totalitarian. This happened because Marxism Leninism, the model of socialism adopted by almost every socialist country, requires a heavily centralized top-down state structure, which I argue lends itself to authoritarianism. The solution is to implement a less authoritarian model of socialism.

2. Greed and naked self interest isn't the primary motivator in economic activity. If it were then you wouldn't have people die by the thousands for abstract concepts like religion or the nation. Even if it were, a communist economy would likely require a significant evolution in humanity, the technology to achieve post-scarcity, or both. Until then I don't see communism as achievable.

Socialism on the other hand doesn't preclude material reward in exchange for contributing to society. The real issue is how that reward is acquired.

3. Capitalism has five major issues that I like to cite: the exploitation/parasitization of the working class, the subversion of democracy, the inhibition of personal freedom as a result of wealth inequality, profit as the basis of economic production, and the loss of agency as a result of the market system.

These would all take a long time to explain in detail so I will try to summarize. Exploitation occurs because capitalists profit from the labour of the workers without actually contributing. Anything they add to the process of production (factories, training, materials, etc) is ultimately paid for by the workers, since anything the capitalists spends on their enterprise is paid for by profits which are be result of the labour of the workers. In this way the capitalist doesn't actually contribute anything, and is effectively a parasite. Pic related.

The subversion of democracy is obvious, we all know how easily big money has been able to put the government in its pocket. This is an inevitable result of so much wealth concentrated in so few hands. In addition, the workplace under capitalism is effectively a dictatorship. Socialism would make it a democracy.

This brings up my next point. Wealth inequality is a fundamental infringement upon the freedoms of the poor. Because your personal agency in life is directly tied to the portion of the world you can exercise your willpower over, your freedom is effectively tied to what you own. If you own something, you are by definition excluding others from it, and massive amounts of wealth can only be held by making sure others can't access it. This effectively means that the rich under capitalism massively increase their freedom while limiting the freedom of others.

Need not say more.

Profit as the basis of economic production has proven to be catastrophic. If you know Adam Smith then you will be familiar with the old shtick about the free market, that it continuously produces better products at lower prices. This is a myth, because the goal of a market actor isn't to produce better goods at lower prices, it's to make a profit. Sometimes this results in better goods and lower prices, but often it does not, just look at planned obsolescence. There is also the fact that profit oriented economies can often ignore potentially catastrophic issues because pursuing the solutions to them aren't profitable. Look at how antibiotics are becoming less effective. The loss of antibiotics would be a massive setback for modern medicine, and yet drug companies refuse to research new ones because they are expensive and have very low profit margins.

Finally there's the loss of agency caused by market forces. A market is a stampede, you as an individual can only influence its structure and course if you can get all of the participants on board, and nobody can get on board unless everybody is on board. A shoe company can't lower the price of shoes unless the price of leather goes down, the price of leather can't go down unless the cost of raising cattle goes down, etc Compare this to a democratic planned economy, where prices can be set in any way the population sees fit, but a vote for one pricing scheme or another isn't dependent on others voting for that pricing scheme. If the pricing scheme I vote for gets voted down, then there are no negative consequences for me. However if I attempt to change my prices in a market, and the other market actors don't comply, then I am screwed. This means that a democratic planned economy allows an individual to more actively influence the economic landscape, and thus have more agency.

4. Gender issues are fixing themselves. This is because sexism isn't necessarily endemic to capitalism, and so it can be remedied without overhauling the system. Racism is harder, because black people are disproportionately among the working class. Being black is basically like holding a big flashing sign that says "I'm a prole". Because capitalism requires that the poverty of the workers be blamed on something other than capitalism, it demonizes the poor. Since being black is so closely associated with being poor, it demonizes black people and creates racism. Official equality doesn't eliminate racism in the same way that George Soros and Joe the plumber both having the same legal rights doesn't translate into them both possessing the same levels of power and influence. Only an end to capitalism will eliminate racism.

5. Free immigration is more of a liberal thing, and is different from socialist internationalism. I'm actually against free immigration and abolishing borders until well after capitalism is destroyed, because while capitalism is intact immigration weakens workers and divides the working class against each other. As for Trotsky's internationalism, that stems from the idea that all workers around the world are equally exploited by capitalism, and as such they should put aside national differences, unite, and overthrow their capitalist overlords.

Sorry for the literal book. Asking questions on Holla Forums can get you some long winded answers. Lefty theory can be real dense.

We were also the only ones ever that actually managed to protect the results of a revolution.

By murdering all the revolutionaries and ruining Marxism?

We know all about it, Gorbachev

Wew lad, I don't think I have enough Tito memes for this one…

Yes, I suppose a revolution is secure when it's lifeless and buried by your own hand.

The 20th century socialist experiments all failed to last while maintaining the goals of the revolution. Quit LARPing and actually think critically for once in your life.

Leftism isn't communism.

Since they are international, they have no religion, culture or any other tying binds. As such, the military must be called in to resolve conflicts. After a while the military assumes permanent power. Not only that, most socialist governments tend to install a permanent dictator as well.

It doesn't function exactly because of greed. Employees hoard merchandise to artificially inflate prices or to embezzle for their own families.

Socialist regimes always start out as a way to resolve dissatisfaction with perceived injustices. However, communism, as an extremely materialistic system, sees all injustices as competition for excess physical consumption. Economic oversight, then, because the most important strategy to resolve interpersonal conflicts.

Nothing except "anti-racist" propaganda that in no way connects with other policies. Inevitably race is put on the back burner when concerns of other "intersectionalities" are brought up.

Free immigration fits in with their branding as an international regime. They became international in "reaction" to nationalist movements leading to the downfall of communism.

And that happens. For example, Republicans pass legislation to keep blacks from voting.

1. No, but it is for Marxist-Leninism. Totalitarianism is a meme term by the way, but authoritarianism rises naturally from the elitism inherent to having a vanguard party lead the revolution.

2. It doesn't. Look up Proudhonian Mutualism. (Also, markets should be regulated with tariffs and syndicalist guilds to promote the interests of worker-owned industries.)

3. Nothing for communist. Civic nationalist republics must be mutualist and syndicalist to function in an industrial society. "Civic nationalist republics" weren't based on capitalism, but instead were based on small self-employed property holders working for themselves. The capitalists were Whiggish constitutional monarchists and Federalist cucks. There is a clear connection between civic republicanism and mutualism/syndicalism. Marxism was the only thing that ended this line of thought.

4.Nothing and it's not an issue. In fact, the issue is that minorities get too much affirmative action and "special rights". Also, all immigrants must be deported and women drafted into the army if they want to vote. (Military service is essential for citizenship in any true republic.) Forced assimilation must be done for all minority groups to join with the local, regional, and national culture of their geographic area to facilitate a united citizenry.

5. None. Liberals and cosmopolitans aren't leftists and are useful idiots for porky. The current "left" is not the Left. The Left is dead. Trotsky is a hack who destroyed Kronstadt, many other peasant and worker revolts, and Makhno. Honestly, he deserved getting assassinated. He created all the tools for Stalin to use with his brutal methods of suppressing Russian peasants and proposals for forced collectivization.

You seem like a nice fellow though. If you end up being unwelcome here, we can chat elsewhere.

Addition to 1: It's also because the Marxists try to force their particular view of a "proletarian revolution" in a economy consisting mostly of peasants. (And believing in a linear, deterministic theory of history, ironically derived from liberal Whig history.)

Good thread

This thread has some really awful answers

Not really
Authoritarianism happened to prevent foreign burgeois interventions. Socialist states because authoritarian in proportion to how much foreign porkies want to intervent on them.

Greed does not drive people, people is greedy because we live on a scarce world. In a world were people is not alienated from their labor (That means they're paid to do shit they don't care about) people will produce thing they need to fullfill the need.

I don't see how civic nationalism and socialism can't fuse, the soviet union tried really hard to be civic nationalist. creating a new national identity, the sviet identity and new national myths centred around the workers and the advancements that communism brough

We're not SJW in case you didn't know
Social clashes in the USA still happens because people is alienated from their labor

Again we're not SJW and anything you read about trotsky is probably made up
Holla Forums is split about migration, my toughts about it don't fit on this comment

Is OP even here anymore? What does OP think about this thread so far?

totalitarianism and authoritarianism aren't the same thing. The majority were neither. It depends on the nature of the transition, unfortunately because of hostility from capitalist countries and capitalists within these countries, they have to take a strong approach in order to protect society. Think of America and the war on terror I suppose.
Greed comes from two things - 1. lack of resources which means that people need to hoard them so that they don't run out later and 2. when a society is so adamant that you must buy the latest thing through advertisements and social pressures, material wealth subconsciously becomes a necessity even though it is not. People try to attain these things despite the fact they don't need them. If a society is not driven by profits and therefore doesn't cultivate this culture, greed is reduced.
There are literally books written on this topic alone, could you be more specific?
Most people would argue that it would either go away on its own over time because many of these divisions are created/enlarged by capitalists in order to control the masses. For example, the past election in the U.S - the media was clearly a huge problem in regards to identity politics.
Not all leftists are in favour of open borders. With that being said, most people migrate away from their families, homes, neighborhoods, friends, work, etc etc because of two things - 1. war, usually waged/interfered with by capitalists countries such as the U.S and 2. economic collapse created by the interference of countries like the U.S and its lackeys such as the IMF. I saw some dipshit Holla Forumsack arguing here recently that it was "human nature" to migrate or some nonsense. Critically question this. Most people are happy to have their friends and family close by and a society that they feel welcome and familiar with. Why would they move?

Good thread though, better than the usual tripe we get like "WHY DO YOU LOVE NIGGERS?"

...

No. And there are plenty of anarchist or libertarian ones. Catalonia is the go-to example. The end goal (communism) is stateless, classless, and moneyless. It's supposed to be very far removed from totalitarianism.

People have needs and will do work to meet those needs. Capitalism has just abstracted away the connection between our needs and the work we do by having us exchange our work for money and then exchange the money for what we need.

There are too many to list. Most disadvantages of capitalist society stem from class and the ones that don't are exacerbated by class. The most fundamental one is that people are no longer being exploited (by which Marx meant you were forced to work in exchange for less than the value of that work).

Identity issues are mostly artificially maintained by now to give the working class something to bicker about and distract them from class conflict.

The modern world doesn't fit into socialism. This is one of many things that would change fundamentally along with a change in the mode of production from capitalism to socialism.

The left is extremely fractious, but it's mostly on the points of what society will be like post-capitalism or how to transition to that society. The unifying theme of leftism is that capitalism (i.e. class division between workers and owners) needs to be done away with.

Bump, I really want to know what Op thinks about the answers

1. Not at all. Communism is inherently anti-authoritarian.
2. We already have the power and technology for people to only work 13 hours a week or less, and the "work" would basically be screwing some bolts, monitoring some machines, etc. Look up Fully Automated Luxury Communism. We can already create a society where everyone can just chill, but only if we work together and liberate ourselves.
3. See above, also literally world peace.
4. Racism and Sexism are oppressive institutions. Anarchism recognizes that and seeks to deconstruct them. Long ago we abandoned oppressive cultural ideas like physiogamy; we can do the same thing with racism and sexism.
5. Couple points:
- Nations are horse shit.
- States are horse shit.
- Borders are horse shit.
Essentially the entire immigration issue, from Mexico to Syria to Indonesia and back again, can be blamed on imperial Capital and slave labor. Government no longer functions primarily as an institution to protect the people but as an institution to protect the Fortune 500. To ban Muslims entry to the EU or the US is a restriction of freedom. To not allow citizens to voluntarily house Syrian Refugees is a restriction of freedom. Whatever crime that results from immigration from Syria can be directly blamed on modern imperialism.

"Totalitarianism" is a bunch of liberal bullshit attempting to equate Marxism and fascism, and is now a concept consigned to history with the USSR. "Communism" has never been achieved; what was achieved were socialist states. And if you think liberal democracies aren't authoritarian you're sadly mistaken. Indefinite detention, execution without trial, surveillance by corporations and government agencies, censorship, and so on and so forth are all features of capitalist "freedom".

Greed doesn't drive power. You're using a very broad and vague moral concept to determine the complexities of our social relations as humans. If you want a good answer you should, you know, read some Marx; he read Smith too, and provided some answers. Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 are a good starting point.

It's not about providing a superior model so much as a vehicle for the destruction of capitalism. What emerges out of that struggle is the key question. Every socialist state of the last century fell short of its goals, though anarchists can hardly boast differently.

Bourgeois equality under the law has always been a sham, where some are much more equal than others. In reality the law discriminates a great deal depending on your class position – race and gender issues reflect this, as well as the fact so few people, especially important people, are prosecuted for really egregious white collar crime, like the entirety of the GFC. Communist/socialist parties offer a class perspective, which cuts through the ideology of identity surrounding many issues.

Most "leftists" are in fact liberals, and they are hypocrites of the highest order who wage war on one hand under the slogan "Responsibility to Protect", and then police the borders with the other while insisting they aren't discriminating – bald-faced lies. Trotsky advocated Permanent Revolution but his ambitions exceeded the means of the USSR at the time. Nation-states, as argued by Trotsky and others, are increasing anachronistic in an age of global, networked capitalism, but the imagined community of nationhood is too useful to discard; hence the supranational project of the EU, for example. Communists/socialists are also aware that cheap labor via immigration is a tool of class warfare – the immigrants take the blame for "stealing" jobs while the businesses utilizing them get away with lower wages and disposing with them at their leisure.