You can't just remove X and expect everything to be fine

"Once the left unites and the revolution comes we'll be able to establish a stateless, classless society where the proletariat are able to come together to solve all the problems of that we currently have!"
or
"Capitalism is the root of all of modern societies woes and when its removed and X system is implemented we can achieve luxury gay space communism!"
Well, those are some of my personal issues so at least there can be some critical discussion on Marxism and its other branches so we can better unders-
I know not all of you are like this, mostly the older guys and some transhumanists. But hell, at least /lit/, despite being mostly filled with some of the most pretentious coffee drinkers who never got to college, has some good critical discussion from time to time where we bounce ideas off of each other. This is just Holla Forums minus the id/pol/ part and even then its still politic and ideology centered circle jerking.

Good thing I'm not an anarchist then.

No, that's retarded.

Who are you quoting?

How do you expect to have a critical discussion coming from your stupid ass straw man post? You got any literature you wanna post or what, faggot

...

It's true that there are a lot of meme threads, but there are enough threads that seriously discuss and explae theory too. It's a image board after all, it was never made for serious discussions, the fact that it can be done is in some sense a miracle my itself.

Could one argue that you have the same position regarding memes/fun and Holla Forums?

But I personally do have to agree with you that too many people simplify the situation, saying "capitalism is evil and bad", etc., which is not the real critique we're making. Same with people saying "Socialism is just workers ownership".

bump

that's where you're wrong kiddo

I actually have no problem with memes in general, but when general discussion becomes just simple answers, utopian thinking, jerking off to the latest anti-porky news, and memes I just end up slinking back to /lit/ for a critical view because /lit/ is critical about every person who ever decided to write. Pic as example of something some anons seem to respond with.

You dismiss so easily the issue of power here. No,we may not immediately see full communism implemented after a single revolution, however, if the proletarian does not get power over their state and means of production, technological innovation won't mean shit. Technological innovation in unchecked capitalism will mean the slavery of the masses at the hands of the patent and copyright holders.

There are some post-marxist thinkers that actually deal with those issues but they tend to be more conservative and not revolutionaries.

Also keep in mind that Marx had in mind the bourgeoise revolutions as an example that you could in fact remove "X", but of course is a complex process. Also people like Mao wrote about the need for people to "change themselves" etc.

Yep. That's pretty much all of them.

What if X = kebab?

What if X = ponies?

I agree with this to an extent but my concern would be that when the proletariat seize the means of production wouldn't their be a need for temporary organizational hierarchy to properly develop technology in a set direction? And if thats the case, why then would individuals selected for that hierarchy decide on what is the best direction without spreading thin resources among multiple projects while also not ostracizing ideas?

I know some people spout "revisionist" every time someone tries to change something with Marx and Engels, but I think its a good idea to take multiple different ideas or revisions and consolidate them to find the best parts. And if the ideas fail or people a flaw spotted that doesn't allow for set destination to be achieved, being willing to change the ideas or destination.

Other then that, in my opinion I think revolting and violently purging those who stand in the way of X idea is not the best way of achieving your goals and that by changing attitudes of people towards others closer to a more compassionate society people will move away from ones where cycles of crawling upon each other occur, though even acknowledge that has utopian aspects and would need revising.

What if X = mask?

When I saw proletariat, I mean the proletariat as the entire class, that is proleterian democracy. While there may be a hierarchy within organizations, even governmental ones, this hierarchy must be subject to either internal or external democratic control, or both.

Doesn't the use of democratic structures, both internal and external, lead to eventual governmental structure without calling them such?

well sure, I am most other leftists are not opposed to government functions, but rather the state, which is an apparatus in which the few control the many, and is characterized by class domination. The dictatorship of the proletariat will by its very nature do away with the first aspect, and eventually do away with the second aspect as it ends class divisions in society.

/lit/ is trash

inb4

There is serious discussion here, you just need to lurk moar.
We do have the technology to meet subsistence level production for everyone on earth though. That's all you really need for the implementation of socialism.
Most of us are materialists or at least pseudo-materialist: so yes we believe that human behavior is governed largely by material conditions and not by innate psychological factors. Primitive societies actually had a great deal in common with the models we propose.
This is mostly a meme. Attempts at "left unity" tend to be half-hearted affairs championed by a small minority. We do recognize that most Leftist groups have similar aims and are "united" to some degree by our hatred of capitalism though.

I guess my critique would be the one that some leftcoms seem to levy against revolutions which is that they are, in essence, always authoritarian as one class imposes dictatorship on another and therefore will always lead to the creation of a state. By implementing government functions and having the proletariat be put at the highest level of governance, a state is formed in which the rational self-interest of the proletariat no longer becomes that of removing those functions.

Not necessarily, their are ways of organizing developmental bodies that don't involve hierarchy.
I agree with this, but some people cannot be reasoned with and will selfishly stand in the way of progress and it may be necessary to dispatch with those people by violent means in some cases. The problem is not that society isn't "compassionate" it's how we define "compassion" itself that is the issue.

Anarchists (myself included) agree with this completely which is why we advocate abolishing the state outright.

That is why I mentioned some, not all. I think I should rephrase my statement of post-scarcity as we do not currently posses the means of complete automation necessary for absolute minimal labor. I used to work in manufacturing so I've had to operate machinery and while were getting close to one, we are not at the point might think we are. Plenty of people are still necessary to operate machinery, maintenance, organization, and logistics. Once companies start sprouting up who don't need humans or a select few are needed it should then be a sign were approaching a state of post-scarcity.
I think I may have to disagree here, there have been plenty of psychological studies of people operating in environments where the necessities are provided to them. Studies on psychological egoism, for example, seem to show people, on average, seem to have very few limits on how far their desires will extend for things even attempting to indulge in new pleasures and acquire new things even when such things are unnecessary. Young Children, who have had very little experience with both money and interaction with capitalist society, will on average not gift others cookies if they know they can gift all of them to someone they like or know. I think by stating material conditions cause psychological factors is like making a chicken or egg argument. Did the presence of scarce materials cause those factors or were we wired to?

I think you're conflating the "fully-automated communism" meme with practical socialism. The former, higher-stage communism, is widely recognized to be many years away. Socialism (lower-stage communism) does not entail anything more than a restructuring of society so that goods are produced for use-value rather than exchange-value. Or to use the other definition: "democratic control over the means of production" which is an even lower bar to clear.
I had written a huge wall of text in response to this but it came out sounding so garbled that I had to delete it.

The basic idea is that cultures are shaped by their material circumstances. Yes, there is an element of "human nature" involved but for the most part nature beats nurture (at least for our purposes). I don't believe that all problems will suddenly go away because of material abundance alone, but that it will lead to radical changes in our culture and in human behavior. There is going to be a cultural shift that comes along with anarchism, socialism or whatever program you prefer. I do believe in making an effort to cultivate ideas beneficial to society and along with the massive change in material conditions the zeitgeist of our hypothetical society will be one that solves a great deal of the problems we see today. Of course, destructive behavior will never go away completely - I only believe that it will be reduced.

How do you prevent groups of people from developing a voluntary hierarchy that isn't influenced by familial favoritism, cult of personality, charisma, or general subconscious attraction to said people due to appearance or being impressed by them. And before you state "psychology is based on material conditions", we can observe the effects of sexual desire and wonderment on people especially during their teenage years when hormonal levels are highest.
Doesn't the same apply though? By using violent revolt to achieve the desired means, we place the general proletariat needs over all else by enforcement even among those who do not agree and then, by replication of developmental bodies, copy the system which existed under the state but enforced by the revolutionaries. Bordiga makes a good point in saying, "the hell of capitalism is the firm, not the fact the firm has a boss." I also find a problem in changing the definition of compassion when the current definition is general in its terms while changing it would make it specific. Is it now compassionate to kill but only under certain circumstances, even when those circumstances are involuntary? Who directly stands in the way of progress? The owners of the means of production? The merchants who sell the products? The unwilling proletariat? The revolutionaries who stand counter to our revolutionary ideas? Would not a view of complete compassion move us towards a society where most people do not indulge in taking advantage of others leading to the collapse of capitalist infrastructure and the realization that more can be acquired by the phasing out of the past one?

A concern I would have with starting off with lower stage communism is that by putting the goods simply at a use-value leads to an unsatisfied populace who desires an abundance of such materials and to an equal desire for quick answers given the need for pleasure and the "threat of death and unfulfillment" effect we see in studies. Something I would like to postulate as well, which I just thought of, would be that if we were to acquire an abundance of resources would we not decline into the problems we had with material abundance with people producing and acquiring more then they would ever need and still suffering a state of unfulfillment? The only way I can see a way around this is individual training of ones state of mind (stoicism, zen, etc.) or trans-humanism.

By promoting anti-hierarchical values and vigorously acting upon them. Not a full-proof method obviously but once we've abolished most present forms of hierarchy and robbed them of their ideological weight the task of preventing their re-emergence becomes easier than it might seem.
This is what I mean. There shouldn't be any "developmental bodies" that are imbued with authority. That just leads straight back to the state. Any developmental ambitions would have to occur in a "grassroots" fashion ad-hoc and without any formal power beyond the magnetism of their ideas.
I disagree. I want to make the idea of compassion less specific. I think the "compassion" we have now is overly narrow. In America compassion for the workers, compassion for the 3rd world, compassion for future generations are all extremely weak because those forms of compassion are not useful to capitalism. Almost all of our "compassion" is saved for pets, WASPs and appeals to "American values" (or "Western values" if you live in Europe).
Police and the military kill untold scores of people today.
This isn't really for me to decide.
That's the ideal and I hope that we do get our revolution through non-violent means. Certainly, I don't want to force anyone to be part of a movement they don't have any interest in but people need land and food and water which means that the ones that "own' these resources have to give them up. It's possible that they do so voluntarily and if so - I have no desire to do them any harm. But if they do not and the choice is starvation or the guillotine then I prefer the guillotine. I do believe that peaceful revolution is possible though and certainly preferable. But odds are that there will be at least some violence involved.

Well of course in lower-stage communism there'd have to be rationing of some sort. There are a lot of competing ideas about the best way to do that rationing though.
Would that really be a widespread issue in a society that doesn't encourage consumption the way capitalism does? What about all those studies that say poor people in the 3rd world are super content compared to people living in more "Advanced" capitalist nations? Either way, if that's the worst problem we have in communism then we'd be extremely lucky.

Not everything will be solved with the downfall of Capitalism.

Everything important will be, however.


So fucking what? You realise this is why labour vouchers are proposed right?


Please explain how the DotP or work place democracy allows for favoritism to be a problem.


This is way too vague, need examples, but I would expect the answer would have something to do with material conditions forming behavior.

>Trying to unite innately different ideologies because "left unity" without having people do above so they don't tear into each other afterwords defeating the purpose.

Yea the unity thing is a problem. If you have any suggestions let us know.

I'm sorry you found out the truth OP, it's hard realizing that this is objectively one of the best leftist forums on the internet and is subsequently fucking pants on head retarded.

well, name a forum on the interwebz that isn't pants on head retarded.

So to summarize, you would prefer a system in which all hierarchies that appear would be opposed by the majority populace due to the general accepted ideological understanding that it is wrong? I could understand such a system, though I'm still skeptical on how we would deal with counter-cultures appearing, but I suppose as you said it would be easier to deal with. I'm also still still also concerned about the thought of "who stands in the way of progress" with regards to the revolt. I definitely agree with you that compassion should be more broad, but I think you should give people more credit with regard to it as even with the Price Equation people express huge amounts of compassion to both those they are related and in rare cases strangers, though those are sometimes in regard to religion.
Just because those who oppress commit actions doesn't make it an argument to commit similar ones. I understand your point of view, but it shouldn't be a general way of justification.

I agree that an unwillingness to discuss topics is anti-intellectual, but it is not always in bad faith. Some things are simply untouchable.

The reason neoliberal social politics work so well is because no one wants to have to tell the liberals that their very concept of oppression and "marginalization" is postmodern horseshit

And have some critical problems in their implementation as is still a wage system, something Kropotkin was critical about, and the implies people policing those who take the goods so they dont leave without "paying for them".
Would they suddenly not allow for it? I discussed it a bit above, but how would large groups of people who either hero worship an individul or are wondered by a quality thay possess not run the risk of doing this?
I also talked a bit about this above. I know its clique, but you need to change yourself before you change the world. Some behavior may very well be material, but it would be naive to say all of it is. We do have inate observeable qualities that we need to realize in ourselves so we can transition out of the current structure in a proper and healthy frame of reference. Stoic, zen, and other similar philosophies are good examples of understanding ones self and controlling/letting go of want.
As before, a proper frame of reference is needed. If left as it is, a united left will either have to adopt the policies of the largest group, which historically has been tankies, or fracture with the largeat group purging or fighting against the rest. Or even worse, going full trot and fighting amoung themselves and each other until nothing is left and the only way of getting on the track back to socialism is to start at capitalism or feudalism and work up all over again.

That wasn't my point. My point was that people are already being killed at an alarming rate under the current system. A revolution ultimately might save many lives. Kill a few to save many.

Not trying to sound preachy and I understand where your coming from, but having seen people think like this and the actions that result from it, it usually just ends with those who love life and try to save it watching those they love or know kill each other. It almost never amounts to a few, on either side.

>Why do lefties all have those dreadful convictions and a worldview that aims at something higher that just endlessly replicating the status quo?
How about no.

Wow OP, you seem like the most unbearable faggot I have seen on this board. People IRL must really dread talking to you.

You can aim for whatever you want, but its always good to have discussion on the possible flaws and steps to those goals.

We do, all the time.

I was mostly attacking this attitude that we all need to discuss things to death endlessly and that finally adopting a set of ideas is somehow wrong, up to saying that we're basically Holla Forums for having shared beliefs and goals.

Define alarming and which current system, this is a pretty broad statement to make

I guess its good I like to listen to them and have them critque me when I do speak my ideas then. I'm honestly not being sarcastic here, if you can educate me on something I'm more then happy to learn about and ask questions about it. I just was pointing out some personal problems I had, feel free to criticize, the anons before really helped me in my understanding.

I know, thats why I said some. There are some threads I have open now I'm enjoying. But some ideas seem to get the same answers or simple meme ones and there are more then a few threads that are just pointless mastubation or schadenfreuding which if anyone remembers, old Holla Forums was filled with. I'm sure there are great discussions here, I've seen them, but in the last month I've browsed here I've had to sort through lots of stuff that was really nostalgic of old Holla Forums.

I mean you came in with a post full of strawmans, when asked for an example you posted an ironic greentext, you claimed to read leftists literature when you clearly haven't based on your criticisms, and on top of that you posted a smug underage Vietnamese girl.

Funny thing, I think /lit/, while sometimes good, is often much worse than this board. Look at a typical /lit/ Zizek thread and compare it to what Holla Forums has, horrible.

Of course the focus of these boards is totally different, I love to get some commie memes from here. While I also love to shitpost about fiction on /lit/.

7 years later newfags keep saying this bullshit. It's incredible.

I'm sorry if it sounded like I was saying all of Holla Forums acted this way, I believe I did say some. I mainly meant it towards some of the threads or responses I see. The greentext response was me trying to say some anons repond with this utopian vision of things and memes, not that that particular greentext is used. I've read Marx, a bit of Kropotkin, and some Bordiga as well as listened to Bookchin and a few others but I've been checking the list and moving through it to gain more of an outlook. Also,

I think its because here Zizek has a different level understanding given this boards nature while /lit/ is general literature and philosophy talk.

Also, if your that user who spams sci-fi and fantasy fiction, thank you

System:Capitalism.
Death toll: at least 20 million per year from easily preventable deaths.

This doesn't count all the deaths that occur as a result of imperialistic wars. With most wars of the past few centuries being driven by profit or ideological conflict with anti-capitalist states you could add millions more to the death toll.

If I could, I don't think I'd be here tbh.